Monthly Archives: May 2022

May 31, 2022 · 19:43

9 options were lining up

Wow! I got some feedback from yesterday, mostly from people who want a free ride and had no idea what they were watching. The sudoku part is a handlebar, an optional shortcut to a much larger stage that was a puzzle and I turned it into an almost simple exercise. But for the Microsoft minded (the non thinkers) lets go over it.

Story
No matter what the story is, there are plenty of elements that can be generated. It’s like creating 180 unique chapters and you only need 9 of them, basically you might create 81 at launch time and get the others created whilst the program is running. Yet getting the 180 (or so) done beforehand makes lighter work afterwards. You see, any story is set to chapters, each chapter is set to paragraphs. So why this many? In case you want a never ending start of quests, you need the ammunition. 

No matter how clever you are, there is always another way and I merely presented one. In the previous image you saw the stage of what story to run, it HAS to start with ‘1’, so whether you take the row or the column, you will have one of each. In my example the blue one is less appealing as the second number is an ‘8’, so it will be a lot less in line. The green one (a coincidence, I swear) gives us 1,4,5,7,2,6,8,9,3 so there is more line and per location you will get one part of the story (via interactions) and the story will shape for the player. So after the third world the player will have parts 1,4 and 5. This is one of the effects of anachronism and linearity is utterly pointless in that setting. And as we realise that we have 150 chapters, we merely randomise the chapters, we sort them and select the 9 highest (or lowest) and as such you would have to play the game 20 times to see EVERY story at the earliest. 

Items
This is a different setting. Let’s state that all the items are the numbers (another use of the SAME numbers). So all the items for world 1 are all the ones in play, but not every world needs to have 9 items. And you might want to focus on what numbers are in play, but remember, each number is only used once, so the Sudoku method HELPS us to shape what we want, but it is not a solution for everything, and every sudoku is different. 

We have Items, people, the story, the location puzzles and the whole comes to a point when we unite them. A new version and a unique version of a game that started in 1988, and with the Forgotten city we are optionally breathing it new life. The Sudoku part is just a handlebar to create a station of almost never ending originality. Especially when you realise that there are “6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 possible solvable Sudoku grids”. I used a simple way to create in simplicity what too many will try to complicate. Not a bad hour, was it? 

And this can be done on the streamers, it can be done on a PS5. I reckon that this is also possible on the Nintendo Switch. All this and all done in the limit of a TV show. Can life get any simpler? Well yes, but that is up to Adobe (for a price) and I think I have a nice idea for them to really screw up the margins of profit for Microsoft (because that is how I roll). And now it is time for a healthy meal (chicken rolls). 

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May 30, 2022 · 21:41

Three IP’s to make a fourth

That is what I contemplated today. I got a little bit lucky. 2 PS5 titles for $30. A good deal to say the least. The first one was the Forbidden city.

When it was released I was on a budget (a tight one) I had seen some parts on YouTube, saw some reviews all positive. The story is (as far as I got) captivating, but something was nagging at me, nothing negative. Merely the setting that once played, that is it. That is how most games go and there is nothing wrong with that. But what if it was not the end? It reminded me of a game I had on the Amiga. It was a Psygnosis title named Chronoquest.

I’ve forgotten most of the game, but this one got me back to those days. Travelling through time, finding clues to the real killer of your father. It made me think. That kind of game is now outdated, but the idea might not be. So when we think of Sudoku, we might remember the simple grid of nine, making horizontal, vertical and diagonal add up to 15. 

Most people learned quickly that the centre needs to be the ‘5’, then it becomes a simple setting of making the other 2 squares add to 10. Yet Sudoku gives us 9 grids of 9 and now it becomes a challenge, even more so when you realise that there are more options than most people can throw their hat at.

So what happens when we take the first game as an engine and create 9 levels. There are so many options. Greek, Roman, Goth, Spanish, Japanese, Scandinavia, Aztec, Mayan, Native American, and that list can go on for a while. Now we create the objects that are required, the stage is set, but this is not merely a whodunnit, this is a larger stage, but with a Chronoquest setting, we merely added steroids to the equation. Then we add an omnibus of storylines and we connect them. Like the Sudoku, we have 9 levels, but the numbers can be anything, and it is that seeding that gives us the options. Consider Chronoquest, places in time, that also implies anachronism, objects in the WRONG tine. It opts for dialogues, it opts for puzzles and if done correctly there will always be the chance that something has been seen before, but if every time has dozens of objects, we end up with 200+ objects The storylines need to be generic, like a dozen stories per time, yet the names can alter, the objects alter and the puzzles will alter. 

Time to fly
Now consider the larger sudoku. We could set the sequence of where we go by the centre square (as an example) so we now get 1,1,3,5,7,7,8,8,9 Now we get the tricky side, how do we enable area 2,4, and 6? Simple, the first double up (1,1) will open all 3, so now we get a puzzle that is slightly more challenging and not linear. The nice part is that 1 through 9 can mean anything and there are dozens of Sudoku creator scripts out there, all ready to be used for the eager maker of puzzles. I merely wonder whether anyone considered this application. Now do not let the style of writing fool you, this will still be a challenge making it and it will be subject to redraws, redesigns and back to the drawing board moments. But when solved, the maker will have a new style of game, a new IP and one that streamers will fight over to get, because replayability will be the streamer scream of 2024. When they learn and find out what the power of ACTUAL long term gaming is, they will get on board fast. So that took less than an hour and even now my mind is trying to implement a new side to using the Sudoku routine without making the game flat or predictable. And it needs to be able to redesign the new game with every matrix created, because that is the foundation of Sudoku, a unique number matrix. 

So look out for what is next and look to what YOU could make to become the next game maker all the others want. 

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May 30, 2022 · 00:29

Creating economic sides

Yes, we saw the optional impact of inns and sustenance. We were given the impact of the smith, and some sides. But how to control them? 

Well that is the first part, we do not control them, the cogs set some form of balance, like tables but with cogs we have less issues. We have slightly more control (or seemingly so), but the setting is an adjusted form of tables. We need no tables, we need the cogs to adjust seesaws and create a foundation of balance. This is hard to put into words and even as the foundation is set to credits, we need second seesaw creator that turns the credit value for each store into goods. This needs to apply for the jeweller, the bookstore, the smith, the general store and so on. I believe that it is like some form of chess assessor. Low value goods, medium value goods and high value goods. There is a side that we learned in school. For example 237 is 2*3*7(33), 28 is 2(2)*7, so how could we translate that into goods? I am still working on it and when we have that, we know what was left, we also know what the location has as revenue, this translates into town welfare. This welfare needs to translate into a balance for the town and a residual that translates into a positive or a negative. The negative pushes the location down, the positive lifts it up. The trick it to stay close to the seesaw balance. Too much into either direction turns places into ghost tows, or over lively places of expansion. I reckon it takes a real mathematician to set the stage for it to work, but the benefits are decently overwhelming so I need to create a way for this to work and it needs to work before we unleash the stories. The stories need to test the seesaw balance, it can flip a little, but it cannot take control, that is the challenge at present. 

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May 29, 2022 · 14:45

Music and sustenance

In continuation of the previous two articles. It is time to set a larger scene. In the first we talk about sustenance. You see there are always food places in RPG games, yet until Monster Hunter, I never saw any of these games take advantage of the sustenance factor. In this I got to thinking.

In the first, the levels of that. As I see it there are coffeehouses, taverns, Inn’s, restaurants, and as such we get to the basic setting we see below. As you might understand, you cannot have a village with a 4 star (or larger) sustenance place. And some places could get an upgrade. The upgradable settings are furniture, sustenance, and lodgings. Taverns can only upgrade sustenance and furniture. Sustenance are upgraded by getting that place a cook, it gets you a 20% discount for the rest of the game. Cooks can be upgraded by getting them a cookbook. Furniture can be upgraded by getting them better furniture and it gets you a +20% discount for the rest of the game. And the setting for the upgraded places is what I wrote earlier. In towns the production goes up, happiness goes up. It has all kinds of long time benefits for the gamer and the gaming area. Then we get another benefit, its benefit is temporary, but larger. You see in the old days the minstrel (bard) could invigorate the area. But the bard can only be in certain places. Restaurant/inn with terrace (as such it would have a podium), and there is an upside in that area. 

It is one of the benefits of the cog system. It showed me the ideas and the benefits of a larger stage, it brings the larger stage to the player and stops the person from being the centre of attention. The player still gets to set the tone in places, set the upgrades. But the larger stage will become the populous and the economy, stages where the player is a simple small factor, not the staging agent. And as we consider that the minstrel can be upgraded (2-3 upgrades in total) we need to make choices. A setting most RPG games tend to avoid, we can do it all, but it takes away replayability and sets the stage for blanket actions and grinding. That are things we can avoid to some degree and we get aa better game because of it. 

Consider that the minstrel can be upgraded 2-3 times. The clothing, the instrument and the music. Then we see that these are extremely limiting items. Like 2 outfits, 1 instrument and three pieces of music at the most. Who will you upgrade? One minstrel completely, or three minstrels partly? All choices we have to make. We could even adjust the music to the max of the highest minstrel, or the level of the minstrel in your home town. All parts that shape a game, all parts that make a game more desirable to the gamer, because a game that shapes in different ways, a game that gives more than one option and makes it replayable, that I a game that will be cherished for a long time and streamers will need long term interest in a game, it is their margin of profit on a large scale. And in this article I am merely scratching the surface of what is possible.

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May 28, 2022 · 22:35

Tally part two

Straight into the deep we go. Breathe in, hold your breath, dive.

Commerce
I wrote most of the foundation in ‘The stage of commerce’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) but not all, the foundation is larger than what I set there. I did it some time ago, but the article came to mind on February 25th 2022. Yet over the last few months I also reconsidered other parts. I stated “In the past I already discussed bookshops, taverns, and smith. We need to include goods and foods. This gives us the shops we need as a bare minimum, and considering the size of any area (in the past shops were seen in larger towns and anyone within a distance came to this place). So we now have the larger stage, and the people in that area add to this commerce.” But the world is larger than this, even if we base it on a 17th century fantasy premise. The cogs tend to simplify the setting, but does not change the dimension and that is what we need. But I feel that additional cogs to prevent the game from falling short. We can all rejoice into tables and the setting for armour, weapons, groceries, food, general items, books, jewels, taverns, masons and the list goes on. There are the cogs that drive 1:1, and the others tend to set the equation 1:2, 1:3, 2:1, 4:1. It is the balance that they set that keeps the game going and the more balanced that is, the longer the attention span the gamer gives it, and that I part of the equation. You can run from quest to quest like some set it, raid after raid and a quick trip to the stores to exchange equipment to coins. The one needs to be prevented, the other needs to be dismissed. The first element was discussed yesterday, by altering the concept and the kind of loot you find, the larger your benefit is in the beginning of the game. As the game progresses we get quarries and mines. The mines might make some of the requirements go away, but not all. As you get into the need of silver weapons, gold for enchanted jewellery. That gave me the idea to add Platinum as a source (it started with an engagement ring, but that is another story and she does not know it yet). But Platinum added a few other options, a few I had not considered before. So as we can find every mine EXCEPT Gold or Platinum we can create a handle on some parts of the equation. Then the idea goes from one side to the other. 

Towns
These are all over the place in many games, there we see villages, towns and optionally cities. This is how it has been, but the setting that we see villages and towns, they support farms, abbeys, convents, and keeps. Keeps have a more central setting in my mind, Keeps are supported by towns and cities, but the distance of a keep allows a town to BECOME a city. That is the larger setting, people can contribute to the creation of a city, but cannot push it. One person does not make an economy, people do, so I had to consider the setting where people are the foundation towards creating a city and even as the player you set the domino stones to get it done, I need a stage where (at least) 10% is out of our hands. I believe that the cog system does work and it works beyond economy, it could be the balance setter for entire games, not to manage it, but to set is as a setting of checks and balances. A setting where we can test the game in its true potential and that is essential. Streaming RPG’s are basically new, they might be based on old games, but the moment the makers realise what else is possible, they will run to what more they can get. They will make their games merely larger but not better. The deeper I dive into creating the next RPG, the more I see that another system is required, another pattern is required and in this I came up with the cog system. It is not unique, it is not the only way that it can go, but it is the way I designed it to go. I personally believe in the cog system. It is flexible, it an be adjusted and tailored to any specific situation or need and that is the foundation towards creating an RPG, is the cog model too small, we can add a cog, we can move cogs to be connected, it is a foundational choice. I believe that for me it is the best choice. For you? You will have to make up your own mind on what works for you. 

Four elements towards any RPG, towards any new story that gives life to a dynasty of gaming, it is time we prepare for the next stage of gaming, whether it is Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, PlayStation 6. We need to prepare what what comes next, not for the 10 year old game that we can play again, even if it was a really good ride. 

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May 27, 2022 · 23:17

First tally of thoughts

After yesterday’s article, I started to make a tally of what the game ‘has’. In the first there was the article ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which had a run down of a lot. But that rundown was not enough. There was the search ‘Lawlordtobe + RPG’ which gave me a lot more of what I wrote (and weirdly enough at least one story I forgot about). The basics are covered. In the basics there is the map, the character and the story. In the deeper run, the map is also covering the environment, the economy and the map itself (which is an environment, challenges and spiking of the map).

Spiking
Spiking is an early term I had. Like in places like Skyrim and Oblivion, there is a lack of caves, ruins and other places. So we spike the map to have these places. Yet the maps to some degree have an approach to caves (and some look really good) but as I personally see them unnatural. There are two problems with my train of thought. Caves are set in stone (literally so), as such they are part of the permanent map. Some places have way too many ruins and these ruins are a weird  form of small. But the idea of some ruins are a good thing, yet how to employ them? 

Brush and thickets, Fallen trees, Hollow trees, Evergreen trees, Rock formations, Rock overhangs, Caves, Low landforms and high landforms. Some are for single opponents, some are for groups. Ruins are a side here. They tend to be a good place for groups. But the setting needs to be natural (or as close as natural as possible). If there is a ruin, there was a reason that the building was there before it was a ruin. And not always is it a castle or a keep. But spiking is a dangerous setting. There is a danger of making it a place of convenience, and that is dangerous for the game. 

As we look into the economy I saw the dangers of ‘loot’ in the game. In some game we enter an old (really old) place, but it has the most modern of ‘loot’. So we redefine what loot is. broken swords, daggers, broken shields, old coins, chains. Elements that can be reforged into metals, old coins (copper, silver, gold) that can be set into metals. Yes there will be chests with actual new(er) stuff. Like groups of brigands, they have bounty, they have conquered stuff (that needs liberating). It will not be about wealth. In one RPG I had 300K, so in what living form of delusional would an adventurer have this much money? Too many RPG seem to value credits as an indication of achievement. That too needs to change. 

I took examples from classical masters, from stories (the non-Robin Hood kind) and from historical events, but they need to evolve in RPG gaming. In the economy that side is merely a cog, but a cog that could evolve. Yet the station of evolution is a larger problem that I have not solved yet. I did like the nemesis system that we see in the Shadow of Mordor, but that was THEIR system, I need a similar but different system. This is to stop grinding, the stage where there will be spawning (one man’s ruin) is the next persons envy. But if the previous group was defeated, the next group will have better defences, and optionally one or two more brigands. There are shelters for singular people and those people are sly a lot more like cutthroats, so no warning. All sides we see very little of in current RPG’s. All sides that are new in the RPG.

Stories
I gave more than one story start and that is central in any RPG, yet there is also the additional stage. You see there is no stage where we can do it all, play it all, live it all (the latter is a matter of debate). But the stories cannot be around you, around the player. The main quests yes, but the side quests need a larger setting than we are used to. There is a side that takes me back to Robert Ludlum’s Scarlatti Inheritance (I think), a local village event and a burial that is part of the story. So to set a side quest needs the seeding of a story all by itself that has several connections. There needs to be an intelligent part in this, so that stories can be written en mass and spread in the game, so that some side quests are not part of every game (another way to prevent grinding) and there we see that we need 50-150 side quests. That can intervene to a larger degree to the character that you play at that time. So far we see the foundation of an RPG that can be played on console or streamer. 

Then we get to the cogs of the economy, I spoke about them but I considered one additional set of cogs for each part. About that in the next story which will happen during my weekend.

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May 27, 2022 · 01:53

IP intoxication

Yup, this just happened to me. I will try to be as clear as possible, yet I cannot say too much. It all started as I was contemplating new RPG IP, not entirely new, it was to be added to the RPG game that I have been giving visibility to on this blog. As I was considering parts in the economy to interact with the play world my thoughts skipped to Brendan Fraser. I was rethinking some parts of Encino Man (with Sean Astin aka Rudy), as well as The Mummy (with Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Carnahan). At some point the mint was drawing a line and even as additional IP came to mind, I ignored it as this would be Ubisoft territory. But the line became and as such my mind saw an interaction that has NEVER EVER been done in RPG gaming before. It would be optionally the stage for Sony, but it seems that streamers (Amazon Luna) had a much better grasp of the option. To get this added in a game would imply that the game would require module of machine learning and deeper learning. Now that is not so odd. A multitude of RPG games have some kind of NPC AI in play (to coin a phrase), but to add this to the character as a side setting has to my knowledge never been done before and the added options would give it more traction towards gamers. There are a few more sides, I discussed that in part in ‘Mummy and Daddy’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/19/mummy-and-daddy/), so well over a year ago (March 19th 2021). There I made mention of “it is basically, to some degree the end of the linear quest person, it is a stage never seen before and I believe that whomever makes that game to the degree we see will make that developer a nice future stage as a new larger development house, and as Micro$oft learns that they lost out again, perhaps they will take the word of gamers against that of business analyst claiming to be gamers.” Additional sides that connect and in this not only has it never been done before, it seems that whomever adds this to their RPG will have additional sides that Bethesda (the company that Microsoft paid $7,500,000,000 for) comes up short on. It feels intoxicating. To have several options in a game that none of the others ever did or contemplated. And now I see that there is more to it all. There is in part a side that touches towards IP Bundle 3 I have, something that could bring Amazon billions (but with a small amount of risk). Yet I never considered it as a side of a game, well to some degree. So as the mind is connecting idea to idea, evolve IP into IP+ and a multitude of IP’s I merely wonder why the others (Google and Amazon) are not on this page already. Google seems to driven to advertise its nest security, Amazon is doing whatever (clothing stores and trying to buy EA), but as I watch the news, and the deeper news that the news will not give us, I see an absence of true innovation in games. In a sense I wonder what is wrong with me, you see I have never been this ahead of any envelope before. 

I tried to explain it in the past. You see there is a side where gaming is, most games are in that ‘light’ circle and the bar is set to the edge. Now there is an area outside the gaming area and that is the area of what is possible, this is where innovation is. the really good games (like Horizon: Forbidden West) are in part there, and they are not alone. The real AAA games are in part there, they are coding there now because it is what will be possible tomorrow, the darker circle is what future games will see as ‘current technology’ that is how games have evolved and that has not changed. I went a step beyond that, I went where tomorrow games are currently not and I set out a slice of gaming heaven and decided to add this to the upcoming technology. There are two dangers. The first is that it has a danger of being delusional. The second is that not all technology can get there. The second one is simple. I see the streamers as a stepping stone to what will be possible in for example the PlayStation 6. A (for the lack of a better term) a hybrid streamer. A fat client client/server application in gaming. One that needs a real power player, but that is not possible UNTIL there is a national deployed 5G network. I believe Amazon Luna and Google Stadia need to get to that point, it is what is required in the evolution of gaming. So there are these two dangers, but is the first danger mine? I do not believe that to be as my mind can clearly see the parts required, but that is the hidden danger of a delusional mind. In my defence I have been involved in gaming since 1984 (connections to Mirrorsoft and Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Virgin Games at the time), so I have been around since the very beginning of games. My mind has seen a mountain of true innovator and innovations. As such I feel I am awake and on top of it. But the hidden trap is there and as such, one can never stop to question your own abilities to avoid falling into the first trap.

But for now I feel intoxicated, and not a drop of alcohol in me, innovation can be that overwhelming. This is why the previous article remains under construction. It has a lot to do with Texas, the ATF and the NRA. I wrote about that before as well and interesting enough the media seems to avoid that side to a much larger degree, with the one or two exceptions I mentioned in a previous article. I wonder why that is. Do you not?  Well time to sign off, snore like a sawmill and get ready for the new day which is already here.

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May 26, 2022 · 20:45

Under Construction

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May 25, 2022 · 22:04

Dangerous ally

That happens, we have enemies, impartial parties, friends and allies. This is how it has been for the longest of times. Yet what happens when an ally becomes a danger? That is what the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/national-security-us-fox-news-threat-report-1.6459660) gives us with: ‘Canada should rethink relationship with U.S. as democratic ‘backsliding’ worsens: security experts’. In this article we are given ““The United States is and will remain our closest ally, but it could also become a source of threat and instability,” says a newly published report written by a task force of former national security advisers, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) directors, ex-deputy ministers, former ambassadors and academics. Members of the group have advised both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper.” That at least is one side. Yet the stage we see here is a little larger than we think it is. You see, we are given “There are growing transnational ties between right-wing extremists here and in the U.S., the movement of funds, the movement of people, the movement of ideas, the encouragement, the support by media, such as Fox News and other conservative media,” I believe that they are missing a few bolts in that equation. As I personally see it, the media is a lot more guilty from my point of view. At present the media is desperate for digital dollars and we see this on a global level. The best way to get this is to get clicks, as such more and more flammable materials are published, just to get clicks. No matter what the consequences are. In this I give you the guardian who gave us (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/22/rightwing-us-pundit-candace-owens-compares-australian-government-to-the-taliban-calling-it-a-tyrannical-police-state-) last October. There we are given “Rightwing US pundit Candace Owens compares Australian government to the Taliban, calling it a ‘tyrannical police state’” In that article we are given “Outspoken conservative political commentator Candace Owens has suggested the US military invade Australia in order to free its people “suffering under a totalitarian regime” while drawing comparisons to Hitler, Stalin and the Taliban.” As such, lets relabel Candace Owens as ‘Black Putin’, with her telling the people “When do we deploy troops to Australia? When do we invade Australia and free an oppressed people who are suffering under a totalitarian regime? When do we spend trillions of dollars to spread democracy in Australia?” Wasn’t that the setting Vladimir Putin used to go into the Ukraine? How is that going?

A Commonwealth nation that has shown it has Freedom of speech, freedom of religion (a lot more than the US has), it has democratic elections and so far after decades, I have yet to see a police state in action in Australia. So which media asked this Black Putin for evidence of a police state? Which media asked this Black Putin for evidence of oppression in Australia and what evidence is there of a totalitarian regime? She is ‘tolerated’ by the media as she flames stuff, she brings in the digital dollars. That is how I personally see it.

So in the report (see below) we are also given “Yet Canadians and their governments rarely take national security seriously. Taking shelter under the American umbrella has worked well for us. This has made us complacent and paved the way for our neglect of national security.” This is true and as the US falters the pressure on Canada increases. I did make mention of something similar to this, but not to this degree and it was a while back. Yet the danger station remains, when the US collapses (which is still possible) the people will try to find a safe haven, and Canada will top their list. Consider the idea that Canada suddenly needs to deal with 5-15 million Americans trying the collapse in their own country, Canada is not ready, more important. Canadian National security is nowhere near ready for that nightmare scenario. In addition, as I personally see it, the Putin’s of America (black or not) will gladly throw oil on that fire to get more digital dollars out of all of it. 

And the Ukraine adds to that setting with “Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, with its deliberate targeting of civilians and underlying threat of nuclear war, has jolted even the most sanguine of western democracies into thinking anew about security. Ahead lies a period of escalating tensions with no clear end in sight” as such the Commonwealth needs to take steps, serious steps towards keeping its territories safe, any way they can. Canada has of course the largest problem. It has 8890km of border with the US and there is no way that this can ever be kept safe or untrodden, so other means will be needed to keep Canada safe. What they are, your guess is as good as mine. But this will come to blows there is no doubt in my mind. Even now we see more and more stories and articles about the decline of the US, but they are trivialised, even the ones from the Pentagon. The power players are all in the believe that it will not happen, but they have their millions safely in a zero tax haven like Dubai, Bahama’s, Monaco or Cayman Islands. When things go south fast they take personal leave get to where they need to be and resign their posts with loads of cash safely tucked away. When that escalated the people will start running and those without cash will try to get anywhere they can and that group is a lot larger than you think. Last year all these people who got into Bitcoin, because it was such a safe bet, what they bought at 87K is now a mere 41K, they lost over 50% and when it goes from bad to worse the US will become close to unliveable. And that is what Canada needs to fear, almost more than any lone wolf terrorist. In all this, with all the things we see 2022 is the first year where several players need to consider that America has become a dangerous ally. It is not the military that Canada needs to fear, it is a senseless 329,000,000 people all trying to find some safe haven and the group that is in poverty and the elderly pushed into poverty is large and growing larger by the day. When we consider “The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up 1.0 percentage point from 10.5 percent in 2019.” We think it is not that serious, but the last two years destroyed savings due to the cost of living under Covid and Bitcoins value for millions of people. There is no way that they US has accurate data at present and that is not on them, but I reckon (speculated estimation) that it is closer to 13.5% at present. As such there is a chance that as per tomorrow 4.4 million Americans will seek shelter any place they can and a sizeable chunk of those 4.4 million will no longer believe that the US can offer that. Even now with unemployment numbers at a global all time low, too many will consider the ‘get out now’ routine. Because if the US has worker issues, than Canada might have them too. Not the worst thought to have, but when millions have that thought at the same time, Canada will face a larger problem and that is before the actual national security problems stir their ugly head. I believe that the Commonwealth nations need to unite and we need to do this now, not tomorrow. Things might get pretty hairy soon enough and not being ready just doesn’t slice the cake, not in this day and age.

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May 24, 2022 · 23:03

The edge of what could be

I thought about this and it intersects with stories over the last week. You see there is a change coming, but one that is openly ignored by some people. Not by the normal people. They ignore it all and so they should. But some want their life to continue as it is, to hang on to easy revenues a little longer at the expense of everything else. There is no real good here. The mistake was made by Sony in 2011 and again when the PS4pro came and now with the PS5 they still make the same mistake. I am uncertain whether Sony can (at present) correct for that mistake. They had the option to gain a huge advantage in 2012, but they decided to play the appeasement game with Facebook, now the game changes. Nintendo was not up to speed for a few understandable reasons and Microsoft only cares for self at the expense of others, so they would never go there. Now in the new setting the streamers are about to get to the same setting. I designed a few parts of it, I set the stage in my first IP bundle and it could apply to Amazon and Google in near equal matters. But that is one setting, the stage could now benefit Netflix in more than one way. Yet who does it fit better? I cannot say, yes a few items fit Amazon better and the idea of the Luna charging ahead sounds good, but the Google Stadia could face the same benefits and none of these parts are part of the additional 50 million consoles. There is the other shoe. I cannot tell how fair it would fit Netflix, but under similar settings all three could compete for that. But it is not about that part. It is about the other parts. 

You see as the game of gaming changes, the makers could adhere to the system, or they can adhere to the gamers and users. It is the second side that will push them forward. The system is clinging to the group of an ageing population, but when that falls away the game itself will be pushed into a new realm. Those not ready will fall behind really fast. In that new stage we have Amazon, Google, Netflix, Sony, Nintendo and Tencent. Yes, we see the claims that Tencent is not coming along, but a stage where hundreds of billions is part of the game and that is not including gambling is not a stage anyone ignores, no matter what they say. Whether it is merely Tencent, or a union with Huawei will be sought is not something I am aware off. But there is no way that Tencent will not be part of this. The part I cannot tell is how far along they will go. Will they be a console, a streamer, or a hybrid facilitating both? You see, I do not know any industrial willing to let go of a slice of $275,000,000,000. As such Tencent is a player, I feel certain of that. 

So where will it all go? There are several indictors that marketing and granularity will change. Meta is one factor, 5G is the other factor and it will all come to blows as Neom is completed. Neom will be the first step to clearly show the changes to marketing, advertisements and a few other matters. I saw this coming and as such I created the 5G IP I have. When the other parts are completed the companies that are still clearly in the dark will wake up and a rush will come. All racing for the same destination and not all will make it and now there are two sides that come to blow. Three if you reconsider the stage. In the first stage there is Meta, meta will be ready and adhering to whatever stage is played, it will be that flexible and I am not certain how or where it will go. Only the inner insiders of Meta know this. The second stage is seen by gamers and more importantly the streamers. The streamers are important fr a few reasons. They can become new clusters. Clusters where gamers and users are in charge, they will decide what they are exposed to and even as some will try to dissuade the consoles and streamers. The one successfully resisting will win that race. You see, the people have had enough and corporations are so used to the bully push that they will continue. Just to get their hands ‘in the game’ but that move will push them out of the game, there is no other solution for them and by the time they learn that lesson the hard way. The users and gamers will have had enough. They will of course cry like Chihuahua’s, making all kind of claims but at the end of the aged population they will be denied access, the people will have had enough. And on the third side is the explosion of marketing and advertising. Neom city might show the way, but they are not alone and that signal will show that there is a larger change coming it will evolve nearly everywhere, but mostly in metropolitan areas. And until recently I never considered that my IP would cover two of the three sides of that evolution. Which is also a larger weird part. Where will Amazon go, where will Google go and how far will Netflix get with their game streaming. All sides that give rise to questions, ones that I cannot answer yet, but I feel it is a temporary setting for me and after that I will consider whether I make it new IP, or make it public domain. In one part I like the public domain side, I have enough IP to last me a lifetime, some of the IP become public domain on June 30th if I do not reset the clock and I will watch from a distance how stupid industrials make claims and demand a seat on some negotiating table they have no business being at. They squandered it in greed and in the belief of their own ego, as such they should be allowed to die (go bankrupt) for that shortsightedness. A stage that has some repetition and a stage that is coming for a few too many of them, especially when they are no longer of what comes next. Yet it also is cause for worry. When these people are denied ‘their’ seat near edge of what could be they tend to become bullish, childish and they will resort to be the selfish people they always were, just a little bit more out in the open now, and still those around them will not act. This is why I like my public domain routine. It leaves the IP FOR EVERYONE and they can do nothing, well almost nothing. The only strength on my side is that I have is the willingness to lose it all, to make it public. 

It is the only thing I can do to protect the realm of gaming, when a company cannot own it, the larger base of players win, that has always been the case. The problem is that not everyone can see that. I do not blame them, I for one did not see it for a long time. I was never one for ‘free games’ and it all should be free or hacked. I believe that game makers are entitled their revenue and their profit. I never opposed that, but in the 80’s and 90’s games were more than entertainment it was a stage where the gamer was enabled. I feel that around 2005-2010 the gamer became a point of exploitation for the system and any digital revenue. I opposed that, there is no clear guilty party. Ubisoft might have some sides, but their need was revenue. I do not consider them guilty. Sony and Nintendo to some degree too. They are all guilty of adhering to a changing stage, but that does not make them guilty. There was a second layer, or at least it was my believe that the second layer was some mash of elements that pushed for a larger layer of exploitation. This continued until now, yet there is a new horizon, the streamers and there they have less power and when the power is pushed onto the gamers and users their options vanish,  that is my belief. There is a lot more and streamers can bring it to the front, the consoles had that option but they decided not to do that, for whatever reason they did not do this.

And now the edge of what could be changes, it alters in a way I cannot tell at present. Yet I still believe that the streamers will be at the core of gaming in the future. I will still play on a playstation as well at whatever number they are when that happens. Yet when I see what could be there is no chance that there will not be a streaming system next to it, as is most likely the Nintendo. Where gaming goes I cannot tell beyond a certain point. That is how things tend to be. I  reckon that it started when I created the foundation of what could have been The Elder Scrolls: Restoration in 2013. Over the years I upped the stage and set it to a much larger foundation. Then it fell away as Microsoft bought the place. So these ideas are now getting incorporated in another game, because the ideas were sound, they were merely precise. As a storyteller I can reshape them to fit another game with reasonable ease. Will these stories be part of the next edge of gaming? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. At times I wonder if pushing the edge of gaming is a good idea. But the edge of gaming was pushed by the CBM 64 (Loderunner), Atari ST (Dungeon Master), CBM Amiga (Dune 2), N64 (Goldeneye), PS1 (TombRaider), PS2 (Kingdom Hearts), Xbox360 (Mass Effect), PS3 (The last of Us), PS4 (God of War) and PS5 (TBA), now it is time for the streamers to do more than be the next copy of a game we see everywhere, now they can shape the edge of gaming that is not here yet. Only under these circumstances will gaming continue, evolve and inspire. Consider the old games and see where the new systems could take us. That is where we will be able to see the edge of what might be.

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