How To Do Red Dead Redemption 2's Serial Killer Side Mission

As you explore Red Dead Redemption 2's vast open world, you'll come across a lot of interesting (and slightly disturbing) things. Sometimes it's a wailing snake-bite victim in need of assistance; other times, it's a creepy abandoned building with a story to tell. But there's one set of chance encounters more gruesome than the rest, and once you find the first, you'll be on the lookout for a very messed-up serial killer.

You'll likely find the first murder scene early in the game. While the other two murder victims are a bit of a ride from the opening areas, you can find them at any time as long as you can freely roam the map. For this guide, we've kept location spoilers to a minimum, and all the screenshots are from an early save with little unlocked--so no worries if you want to play detective for a bit before you really dig into the rest of the game. Of course, this does contain spoilers for the American Dreams Stranger Mission.

For more guides, check out our features highlighting all the tips you should know before playing and things the game doesn't tell you. We also have specific guides on things like money making and gun customization to help you be the best outlaw out there. Be sure to read our Red Dead 2 review if you haven't already, and if you want to have some extra fun, be sure to read our feature detailing the game's cheat codes.

Step 1: Completing the Map

There are three murder scenes to be found, with a piece of a map hidden at each. In order to initiate the Stranger Mission itself, you first have to put the map back together. In general, you're looking for an area that sticks out in some way--maybe you see blood stains on the road or vultures in the distance. You can also zoom in on the map when you get close, since an X marking the corpse will appear and show you the way.

Murder 1: South of Valentine

The first murder scene is just outside of Valentine. Follow the railroad tracks going south out of town; you'll have to ride directly on the tracks at one point to get over a gap, and then you'll find the body under the next overpass. The "front" of the scene faces west. You'll find creepy words written in paint on the right, and to the left, the victim's severed head is stuck to a support beam. In its mouth is the first of three map pieces.

Murder 2: West of Shady Belle

The second crime scene can be found in the Scarlett Meadows region, which is a decent ride southeast of Valentine. It's just west of Shady Belle or a bit south of Rhodes, depending on your angle of approach. It's easiest to spot coming from Shady Belle; take the road west, go straight at the first fork, and keep going straight for a bit until you reach a second major fork. Turn right here, then go straight until you reach another fork in the road. The corpse will be strung up in a large tree to your left; on your map, it will be right around where the "S" in "meadows" is. Go around the back of the tree to find the severed head and map piece.

Murder 3: Southwest of Wallace Station

The final murder victim can be found strapped to a large rock just southwest of Wallace Station in the West Elizabeth region (it's west and a bit south of Valentine, across the river). Cross the stream and you'll see the rock up the hill, likely with vultures perched on top of it. The head and final map piece are on a smaller rock to the left.

Step 2: Locating the Killer

Once complete, the map will give you vague instructions on where to go and what to do when you get there. It shows a bridge with arrows leading into a forest, a dilapidated log cabin, and a code for a combination lock: 6-34-32. As any true crime fan knows, murderers usually kill in areas they know and perhaps live in, which is as good a place to start as any. (If you'd rather solve the mystery yourself from here on out, don't keep reading!)

As it turns out, it ends where it all began: Valentine, or technically southwest of Valentine at a place called Lucky's Cabin. If you're coming straight from the Wallace Station murder scene, cross the river and follow the main road northeast--this is the direction shown on the map, and you'll turn left just after you cross the bridge to reach the cabin. If you're instead coming from Valentine, just follow the road out of town to the west.

With the pieced-together map, you'll be able to open the basement doors and see the horrors within. A white ? icon indicating a Stranger Mission should appear on the map around the cabin--if not, you might have an active mission you need to complete first. After taking a good look around the killer's hideout (use your lantern if you really want to see every grisly detail), head to the back and inspect the knife. This will trigger a cutscene, so all you need to do is follow the prompts.

Once you've hogtied and delivered the killer to the Sheriff's office in Valentine, he'll attack the Sheriff. Use Dead Eye to kill him and save the Sheriff for a reward, which will complete the American Dreams Stranger Mission. Hopefully Arthur isn't too creeped out.

A man spent millions on an enormous plot of land near Reno. Now he wants to build a community based on the blockchain technology introduced by Bitcoin.



STOREY COUNTY, Nev. — An enormous plot of land in the Nevada desert — bigger than nearby Reno — has been the subject of local intrigue since a company with no history, Blockchains L.L.C., bought it for $170 million in cash this year.

The man who owns the company, a lawyer and cryptocurrency millionaire named Jeffrey Berns, put on a helmet and climbed into a Polaris off-road vehicle last week to give a tour of the sprawling property and dispel a bit of the mystery.

He imagines a sort of experimental community spread over about a hundred square miles, where houses, schools, commercial districts and production studios will be built. The centerpiece of this giant project will be the blockchain, a new kind of database that was introduced by Bitcoin.

After his driver stopped the Polaris on a high desert plateau, surrounded by blooming rabbit brush and a grazing herd of wild horses, Mr. Berns, who is 56, pointed to the highlights of his dream community.


“You see that first range of mountains,” he said, pointing south. “Those mountains are the border of our South Valley. That’s where we’re going to build the high-tech park,” a research campus that would cover hundreds of acres. There are also plans for a college and an e-gaming arena.






As strange — even fantastical — as all this might sound, Mr. Berns’s ambitions fit right into the idiosyncratic world of cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

The blockchain began as a digital ledger on which all Bitcoin transactions are recorded. Some aficionados have grander plans. They think it could be a new way of taking power back from the institutions they believe are calling all the shots.


Just as Bitcoin made it possible to transfer money without using a bank, blockchain believers like Mr. Berns think the technology will make it possible for ordinary people to control their own data — the lifeblood of the digital economy — without relying on big companies or governments.


There is a fuzzy line between these utopian visions and get-rich-quick schemes. Several cryptocurrency projects have been shut down by regulators; apparent hucksters have been arrested; and a plan to transform Puerto Rico with cryptocurrencies has been criticized as nothing more than a bid to take advantage of the island’s status as a tax haven.


Mr. Berns was drawn to Nevada by its tax benefits, including the lack of income taxes. And the breadth of his ambitions certainly raises the risk of a boondoggle.






But he is different from his crypto-brethren in one big way: He is spending his own money. So far, he said, he has spent $300 million on the land, offices, planning and a staff of 70 people. And buying 67,000 largely undeveloped acres is a bit of old-fashioned, real estate risk-taking.


Still, Mr. Berns said his ambition was not to be a real estate magnate or even to get rich — or richer. He is promising to give away all decision-making power for the project and 90 percent of any dividends it generates to a corporate structure that will be held by residents, employees and future investors. That structure, which he calls a “distributed collaborative entity,” is supposed to operate on a blockchain where everyone’s ownership rights and voting powers will be recorded in a digital wallet.
Mr. Berns acknowledged that all this is way beyond what blockchains have actually accomplished. But that hasn’t discouraged him.
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“I don’t know why,” he said over the roar of the Polaris engine. “I just — something inside me tells me this is the answer, that if we can get enough people to trust the blockchain, we can begin to change all the systems we operate by.”
Mr. Berns has managed to win over local officials who are eager for economic development. Nevada’s governor, Brian Sandoval, read a proclamation that named the Blockchains property “Innovation Park” at an event last month where Mr. Berns sat on a panel with the governor and Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla.






Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada, which has been described as the largest building in the world, is surrounded by Blockchains’ land. Companies like Google, Apple and Switch also have properties in the industrial park that is surrounded by Mr. Berns’s holdings.



This week, he announced a memorandum of understanding with one of the state’s main power companies, NV Energy, to team up on projects that will run energy transactions through a blockchain.


The Nevada county where this is all located, Storey County, has only about 4,000 residents and was best known, until recently, for its history of silver mining and its modern brothels, including one owned by a county commissioner.


That same county commissioner, Lance Gilman, bought the land surrounding the brothel and turned it into the industrial park where Tesla and Google are now located.


Blockchains has already received preliminary county support for a new town along the Truckee River, with thousands of homes, a school and a drone delivery system, and is working closely with the county on a broader master plan.







But for now, Blockchains is empty land and a repurposed office building. Mr. Berns said the company won’t begin construction on the broader property until late 2019, at the earliest, after putting together the master plan and getting it approved by the county.


The office manager from Mr. Berns’s old law office in Los Angeles, Joanna Rodriguez, moved with her four children and husband to Nevada.

“He has these crazy ideas — but I know that every time he sets his mind to something he will get there,” said Ms. Rodriguez, 29, who has worked with Mr. Berns for eight years and is now the manager of the Blockchains office in Nevada. “That’s why I decided to move.”


Mr. Berns spent most of his professional life on class-action lawsuits, many of them against financial companies. He learned about Bitcoin in 2012 but was won over by another cryptocurrency, Ethereum, which makes it possible to store more than just transaction data on a blockchain.


Mr. Berns bought Ether, the digital token associated with Ethereum, in a big sale in 2015. Thanks to an astronomical increase in the price of Ether and some well-timed selling last year before it crashed, he became wealthy enough to fund his dream project.







Ethereum is what he believes makes his community more than just a giant real estate project. To understand why requires more than a bit of imagination. And faith. Every resident and employee will have what amounts to an Ethereum address, which they will use to vote on local measures and store their personal data.
Mr. Berns believes Ethereum will give people a way to control their identity and online data without any governments or companies involved.

That is a widely shared view in the blockchain community, but there are significant questions about whether any of it can work in the real world. Most blockchain companies have failed to gain any traction, and Ethereum and Bitcoin networks have struggled to handle even moderate amounts of traffic.
Mr. Berns believes that one of the big problems has been security. People have been terrible at holding the private keys that are necessary to get access to a Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet.

He wants to address that with a custom-built system where people’s private keys are stored on multiple digital devices, kept in vaults, so that no one device can gain access to the keys. He has already purchased vaults that are burrowed into mountains in Sweden and Switzerland, and he plans to build additional vaults in the mountains in Nevada.

The other thing holding back Ethereum, Mr. Berns believes, has been a lack of real-world laboratories. His Nevada land, he hopes, will change that.
“This will either be the biggest thing ever, or the most spectacular crash and burn in the history of mankind,” Mr. Berns said. “I don’t know which one. I believe it’s the former, but either way it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”

Credits: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/techn...ciety.html

5 Ways Blackout Mode In Black Ops 4 Can Improve In The Future

Call of Duty is the first big shooter franchise to wade into the thickening fray that is the battle royale genre and attempt to dethrone its current kings: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite. The new Blackout battle royale mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 makes a strong case for the franchise's ascendance in this genre, too. Blackout takes a lot of things that have become signature elements of battle royale, like last-player-standing matches, huge maps, randomized weapons, and careful gameplay, and tightens up the formula with the solid mechanics and polish for which the franchise has become famous.

That doesn't mean that Blackout has won the battle royale melee just for showing up, though. Yes, developer Treyarch has made a lot of great improvements to things players are used to seeing in PUBG, Fortnite, H1Z1, and others, but it's by no means perfect. Blackout relies heavily on players' existing knowledge of other battle royale games, for instance. It introduces a lot of new systems without giving much explanation about how they work, like other battle royale games, without acknowledging that with its huge audience, it's probably introducing many players to the genre for the first time. And it's still following the lead of the games that have come before it.

Blackout is a fun mode with a lot to love. The question is, can it last, especially as more and more developers chase the battle royale trend? Here are five ways that Treyarch could improve Blackout to help it become the last battle royale game standing.

Make It Easier For New Players To Learn The Game

The great thing about Call of Duty games, and one of the things that's helped make the franchise so enduring and popular, is that they're generally very easy to pick up and play. Hopping into a standard Deathmatch game in any Call of Duty doesn't require too much background knowledge for reasonably seasoned players. You don't need to know the pros and cons of every gun, for example, to be a solid fighter, because the game provides you with loadouts that make it easy to get a sense of what works for you and what doesn't.

By its very nature, the battle royale genre upends this thinking. It's inherently a more complex concept. Spending time trying out new equipment comes at the high price, since matches are longer and more involved. In any given game, you need to know where to deploy or try to deploy; what equipment you actually need to survive and to fight; what "circle collapses" are and how they work; and how to actually engage enemies. Yet Blackout gives very little information or explanation to new players about the mode and how it works. Call of Duty has the power to bring a huge number of people to the battle royale genre yet squanders it by chasing the audience of players who already play those kinds of games. It's a huge missed opportunity.

Make Blackout More Accessible For The Less Hardcore

Continuing the last point, the folks at Treyarch could stand to try to make Blackout clearer and more accessible beyond the first couple of matches. Most of the games in the battle royale genre can already be tough to break into and understand. Not only are there things new players have to learn basically with zero assistance when they start these games, but these games are full of intricate systems and mechanics whose uses and benefits aren't very clear, even when you've built up some experience in the game.

Blackout is already a little better than most games at getting you acclimated. Hovering the cursor over weapons and equipment on the inventory screen gives players some (very brief) insights into their types, uses, strengths, and weaknesses. But you'll learn little or nothing about things like just how useful adding grips to your gun can be, or what differences to expect between 5.56 and .45 ammo. Some players and streamers even take to Reddit and YouTube to figure out all the little details about how guns, armor, and equipment in these games work--and that level of dedication inherently leaves more casual players, who don't have the time to research bullet drop or recoil reduction, on the outs. Blackout has the opportunity to make a more inviting battle royale game that's easier to understand, no matter whether you play one match a week or 50.

Audio Needs An Overhaul

A key part of battle royale is sound, especially when playing solo. Players are alone on the a vast island in Blackout, with only their wits and whatever they can scavanage, and often they can rely only on their senses to locate other players and protect themselves. In most battle royale games, sound is more important than just about anything else, because hearing other players walking, driving vehicles, or fighting one another is often the only information you can get about where they are and whether you're in danger.

Blackout currently seems to have two problems with audio. First, the sound in Blackout can be frustrating when you're relying on it. Your own footsteps and actions are very loud, while sounds from other players can be excruciating to hear and pin down. This does make the Awareness perk, which boosts your ability to hear sounds from other players, a lot more valuable, but it shouldn't be quite so hard to hear who's sneaking up on you in the first place.

On top of that, other players have complained about issues in which sound doesn't always work correctly in Blackout, or comes out of the wrong speaker or headphone channel; a player might be approaching you from the left, but you're hearing it coming from the right, for instance. That's an element that needs to be fixed in Blackout if it's going to have longevity. Even without focusing on a major problem like that, though, audio could use some work in the future to make it more viable for players to use their senses to survive.

More Zombies!

Blackout sets itself apart from the rest of the battle royale genre with a lot of little Call of Duty-type elements--like the addition of undead enemies carried over from the Zombies mode. In certain areas, your sneaking and looting can be halted by zombies popping up and trying to murder you. Right now, though, you could play several matches of Blackout and never come across a zombie. Even if you did, you'd likely never really have a need to be afraid of them, since they're easily avoided and not especially dangerous. Zombies in Blackout are little more than a novelty, but they could be a lot more.

Just simply putting zombies in more locations would instantly create a totally different battle royale dynamic, creating a middle ground between existing battle royale and Call of Duty's Zombies mode. We saw something in this vein with the Blackout beta, in which Treyarch included a zombie boss character players could encounter, and take down, during matches. Treyarch could get even more creative with zombies; the developer could add them to popular locations that see the most players at the start of every match, while smaller, more hidden locations could be safer, changing up players' incentives when they first start a match. Or the number of zombies filling the map could be more reactive to where players die. Zombie populations could climb as the circle closes, or they could pick up speed and strength as it tightens, making being caught outside the circle even more harrowing than it already is.

There are a lot of possibilities to make zombies a bigger part of the Blackout experience, even if those possibilities are relegated to additional game type options separate from the standard Blackout competition.

Lead, Don't Follow

Blackout does a great job of taking the existing battle royale formula and improving upon it. Perks, weapon selection, improved mechanics, zombies, and streamlined gameplay are all great additions that make playing Blackout familiar yet different. But they all also feel like somewhat superfluous renovations to someone else's building. Blackout is very similar to the current top battle royale titles, and because of that, it feels like it's chasing the current leaders, rather than searching for a path of its own.

Blackout has identified some of the problems of other battle royale titles and fixed them, while also putting a bit of a Call of Duty spin on the whole idea. Going forward, however, Call of Duty needs to do more than just turn out a Call of Duty version of PUBG. What exact shape that might take is tough to guess at, but in a field that's quickly filling up with battle royale options, as well as copycats and knockoffs, it's going to take more than polish and improvements for Blackout to keep players invested long-term.

The ‘Forza Horizon 4’ team pays tribute to Día de los Muertos

Weekend Deal – Phantom Doctrine, 25% Off

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Now Available on Steam – Football Manager 2019

New Preview Alpha Skip Ahead 19H1 Build – 10/24/18

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PDT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Skip Ahead will begin receiving the latest 19H1 Xbox One system update (rs_xbox_dev_flight.181022.1900). Read on for more about the fixes and known issues in the latest 19H1 system update.  This build has the same features as 1811 plus more to be announced over the coming months!

 

New Features:

 

Family Settings

• We have added a new setting that lights up the features that allow a non-adult account with no parent to accrue a parent on console.

 Mouse & Keyboard Support

• We have enabled mouse support in the build.  Please check out the Quest in the Xbox Insider Hub to experience mouse and keyboard support in Warframe.

 Search Enhancements

• The search function has been enhanced across the console and will now return responses from the Xbox Assist application for example to help with help, support and troubleshooting.  Please check out the Quest in the Xbox Insider Hub to help us gather feedback.

Fixes:

 

Accounts

• We have fixed the issue in which Child accounts could not login on the console.

 Audio

• We made a change to the workload scheduling of Mixer and Audio to reduce audio glitching issues. Let us know if there are any regressions in Game DVR or Mixer audio.

 Media remote

• The IR remote audio controls (volume up/down and mute functions) on the media remote are now working.

 My Games and Apps

• We have fixed the issue in which game and app updates were not automatically downloading and installing.

 Notifications

• We have fixed an issue with users being prompted and spammed by a “Welcome to Game Pass” notification.

 Power

• We have fixed issues in which the console is fully powering off when it is placed into Instant On mode.

 System

• Addressed the system Out of Box Experience to set the features of Dolby Vision, Variable Refresh rate and low latency modes when enabling 4k mode.
• Stability fixes in this build.

 

Known Issues:

Avatars

• It can take up to 10 seconds to view an Avatar on the profile screen after creating a new Avatar.

 Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

Co-Op Arcade Racer Trailblazers Screeches Onto Switch On 15th November

Great news for speed demons! Rising Star Games, in partnership with UK-based independent game developer Supergonk, are bringing the co-op arcade racer Trailblazers to the Switch eShop on 15th November after a short delay.

The game features an innovative on-track game mechanic. Racing in teams of up to three-versus-three, players are able to paint the track Splatoon-style as they race, capturing key areas to alter the all-important racing line. Six-player online is also included.

That’s not all! The Switch version will also feature an exclusive character: the overbearing space frog father of Boo – Boo’s Dad! (no, not that Boo!)

It all sounds quite promising. Check out the trailer above and let us know if you plan to pick this up later in the month with a comment below.

Dota 2 Update – October 31st, 2018

– Fixed a longstanding bug that caused units to attack more slowly than expected at certain attack speeds.
– Fixing a bug that caused Morphling to not gain stats when leveling up while morphed.
– Fixed a bug that allowed the Silence from Riki’s Smoke Screen to be applied to units with Spell Immunity.
– Fixed a bug that caused Monkey King to become disabled when Feared during Primal Spring channeling.
– Fixed post-game scoreboard text not clipping correctly with long strings.

Minecraft 1.14 Snapshot 18W43A

The first snapshot for 1.14 “Village & Pillage” is here, and oh boy, it’s a big one! With new items, new blocks, new mobs, new blocks, new enchantments, new blocks, new mechanics, even more new blocks, new commands, and not to forget all the new blocks – we’re pretty confident there’s something for everyone in this snapshot!

A full summary of the content available in this snapshot can be found in the changelog on Minecraft.net, the following is a short summary:

• Added Bamboo Blocks into the game
• Added Bamboo Jungles in the world
• Rewrote the book & quill editing to be more intuitive
• Added Crossbows!
• Added lots of new decorative blocks!
• Added new dyes and flowers!
• Added some community suggestions
• Updated the credits list
• Added in-game buttons for reporting bugs or giving feedback
• Added Illager Beast
• Added Loom into the game
• Special banner patterns can now be crafted into a new item, Banner Patterns
• We’re now using the new textures!
• Added pandas!
• Added Pillagers
• Added suspicious stew – hmmmm!

To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 

Share your thoughts on how 1.14 is shaping up in the comments below!