Category Archives: Gaming

Brain switch

Something happened to me around 02:00. My mind was redesigning a CBM Amiga game for streaming systems when a switch went off. I cannot really go to much into details for a few reasons, but my mind went into overdrive. I was redesigning part of a game almost every 10 seconds adding more and more. Then the mind took a sidestep and went into overdrive. The results are not to be placed here for a few reasons, yet I believe that the impact will be global if my mind is correct (which I am willing to doubt at present). The ideas for enhancing social media, the tomes of advertisement and several other parts flashed through my brain. 

As was the first part in Unreal Engine 5. I saw in a few ways that it is a game changer and could guarantee (with the right approach) a setting that goes so much further than the 50,000,000 subscriptions I expected. If this goes right than this system will go to almost double of what I expected and that is something. If my mind is not delusional, this setting could break all records in gaming and as I have been part of the gaming world since 1985 that would be some crown to remove from my head as I retire, my mind has always been about more than gaming, in the 90’s I tried to advocate that gaming could lower the threshold of IT for people, IBM refused to listen as did other players and I was proven correct less than 5 years later, I was correct a few times over in the decade that followed and now, now I see a new stage, a new setting and all that could enhance in several directions and as my subconscious brain is trying to tell my active brain side that there is more I see more applications and a lot more settings that could enhance in several ways. All that and at present the only player ready to see what could be a stage 2 setting that gets them close to $20,000,000,000 annual. The Kingdom Holding Company has an option to reverberate all over the Islamic world with additional handhelds that could get them a truckload more options, but I need to tread carefully here. I need to retest and reset every element here, a player like that you can only approach once and I need to make sure that the voice of delusional greed is handled and muzzled, but it is hard. As I see more opportunities (in part thanks to the Unreal engine 5) we see that whatever this system becomes and who owns it, it now stands in a place where it can overshadow all other systems, something I never aimed for but there it is. I have been and remain a loyal Sony fan and my PS5 is ready to get Hogwarts Legacy which will happen in 309 minutes (roughly). But as I see the next iteration of what I thought out, the station merely expands and enhances and it will be my pleasure to hand the wooden spoon to Microsoft (should I get that opportunity). 

And still my mind is pointing out some of the past versions and what could be possible in this setting and the stage of doing that to a streaming system, I need to find my off switch, I need sleep.

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Low ball realisation

This happens and I am just as easily taken in on that funnel as anyone else. Before I go into that part it will be important to illuminate another side. This all started last night when I took notice of ‘Pakistan blocks Wikipedia for ‘blasphemous content’’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64523501). It is there we see “The move was announced on Saturday after the free online encyclopaedia was given a 48-hour deadline to remove some material. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said Wikipedia failed to comply with its ultimatum.” And if you think that it is set to “Blasphemy is a highly sensitive and incendiary issue in Pakistan.

Other platforms including Tinder, Facebook and YouTube were previously blocked in the Muslim-majority country” you would only be partially right. You see, later in the article we see “Facebook was blocked in 2010 following a row over an internet campaign inviting people to draw images of the Prophet Muhammad”, here we now have an issue. You see, Islam does not allow any image of the prophet and every Muslim knows this. This is done by people to push islamophobia. It was not an drawing competition to draw the image of Jesus of Nazareth, or even Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. It was an insult to Muslims and we need to start learning that some things are just not on. Why insult Islam? Islamophobia is a lot bigger today than it was in 1095, when the first Crusade was happening we we were all trying to kill one another. Something needs to be done and the drawing competition was my handle to write the script ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which was my script on the assassination of Dutch politician Geert Wilders. A movie that plays in part in Saudi Arabia and part in the Netherlands (the Hague). It was my response to these unacceptable acts of islamophobia. Yet in the latter settings it also enabled me to create a new IP that allows for 50 million subscriptions in phase one and growing a lot more after that. Now with this event in Pakistan it might be that my expectations might have been low balled. The numbers might turn out decently higher. Which would be good for me, but not so good for Google, Facebook and two other players. Amazon is still on the ramp to make a decent killing here, but there is one issue, I am not sure if Amazon is ready for it and in part I hope that the Kingdom Holding Company and in particular Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud as I hope to retire soon and leave this islamophobic world behind me. I honestly have had enough of the hatred and empty ego stages, aren’t you fed up with needless hatred?

Anyway, the stage of Pakistan works for me, but there are two parts that needs addressing. It is seen with “Wikipedia failed to respond to “repeated correspondence” over the removal of “blasphemous content”” and ““They did remove some of the material but not all,” he added, confirming that the website would remain blocked until “all the objectionable material” was removed” for the first part and “Details of the material in question have not been revealed” for the second part. For me there is an issue as I am not Muslim, I have no idea what goes and what is forbidden as blasphemous. That part too needs addressing and the BBC is not giving us anything on this at present. I cannot blame the BBC, because I do not know if they know, or if Wiki has been lacking in informing all parties. In addition we see “Free speech campaigners have raised concerns over the move, saying there seemed to be “a concerted effort to exert greater control over content on the internet”” yet I do not agree with them, not in this case. Islam has strict rules and for the most Muslims are pretty conservative when it comes to those rules. We need to accept this and bullshit wielding free speech campaigners need to accept that their notions are limiting and not the view of all, not even the view of most. Now that Christianity is a minority, these ‘evangelisers’ will have to put more and more water to their mass wine and accept that they are no longer in any kind of charge. We need to accept that we might have a say in OUR pond in our garden, but our voices are no longer accepted in lakes, rivers, seas and oceans. We need to learn to adhere to the rules in those places. I love free speech, but do we even have that? We are silenced by trolls and idiots who silence us whilst politicians remain silent and remain inactive on too many events. In other places these people are taken off the board and not in a nice way. We low ball our vision of self, whilst we over-exaggerate how much we can do. 

The world never ever worked that way. In the 90’s Netscape was told where to go by Microsoft and the stakeholders on the side of Microsoft, several other events took place, but in many cases, they were simply surpassed. AltaVista became part of Yahoo and they were surpassed by Google who thought things through and really made a killing. Not all events are ‘evil’ events, technology does evolve and no everyone adjusts and evolves with it, that is the part we overlook. Islam does not evolve easily or to a larger effect. Changes take a really long time and we either accept that or we become obsolete in their eyes. The second is likely to happen and we need to take heed. The larger problem is that plenty of technologists like me are not Muslim, some of us have no clue what is blasphemous and we are often never informed. As I read it Wiki was, as we were given “Wikipedia failed to respond to “repeated correspondence” over the removal of “blasphemous content”” but the BBC did not tell us what the blasphemy was. And that is the setting that islamophobes are pushing for with their drawing competition of Muhammed and I get it that Muslims take offence to such events, do you?

The world and economy are taking a sharp turn in another direction, I foresaw that and created new IP because of it. Will it work? I hope so, yet I cannot tell. Amazon is my best hope as Google walked away from that field, a field with a maximum of 1,800,000,000 subscribers. Time will tell, but as I see it Pakistan is now adding oil to that fire, which seemingly works for me, I personally hope so and that is as good as it gets for me (at present).

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Evolution in gaming

That is the subject of today. As I wrote a few chapters in the past regarding that, some people had questions and questions are good. But to coin a phrase, I just got you an evolution here. This is merely a setting, merely an example and I believe it opens up the game stage for everyone involved (mostly for the Amazon Luna). 

The game I selected here was Crush, Crumble and Chomp by Epyx. A game I bought around 1986 as a CBM64 disc game. 

As we see the image above, we see the map as the CBM64 was able to manage with its 64Kb. It was a big thing in 1985, in 2023 not that much and in this case we see the first step of evolution, we use the map that was used in Watchdogs 2, which also plays in San Francisco. 

Like in the movie Rampage we start with three monsters. Godzilla, Dwayne Johnson (oops, I meant the giant Gorilla) and the wolf. What makes this different now is that this game has three game modes. In mode one we are the government side. We get to automate (to some degree) the police, the army and the fire brigades. As the game progresses we get to enhance the intelligence of the government sides and we get more hardware to do so. In the second mode we get to play the monster and we can have a free for all on the city of San Francisco. The more damage, the higher the score, and of course there will be options to have a snack in the shape of Malin Åkerman, its only fair as she played the Corporate B from hell. It is mode three that becomes the stage, we now get to ‘program’ the monster and we got through the motions to make it as smart and devastating as possible. More important when it gets to level 4 (my mind came up with 5 levels) you can put your monster online and see how it does as others try to play the game with YOUR monster and that gets you ‘international’ recognition. You see, as I personally see it, the game that Jon freeman and Jim Connelley designed deserves a second chance to life and I thought it was limited at the time, but that was due to the memory restraints on the CBM64, now we can turn it to something real with real sides. Of course Ubisoft would have a large advantage to produce it as they created the city, but that shouldn’t stop others. Ubisoft has more advantages, as it adds Chicago and London and more importantly, as they add New York the mayhem is close to complete. 

 I would like to try and find a way to incorporate the music used on the CBM64 which was Mussorgsky – Night On Bald Mountain, it set the tone nicely and was a great choice to have. This took less than an hour to create and the library for a dozen more games are coming to mind. A stage that would service the 50 million subscribers in one setting and optionally the Amazon Luna setting too and this was not the best game to begin with (compared to thousands of other games). For the GAAS environment enhancements are the future of gaming and when Amazon figures this out they will be off to the races leaving Microsoft far behind them, as they should have in the first year of operation against Microsoft. Microsoft can buy all the software houses they want, but those with a lack of imagination will hollow out Microsoft faster and faster. Creativity cannot be bought by those who embrace fake it till you make it. That is how I see it.

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As I aid timing

There is a stage that is coming. I have stated it before and I am stating it again. I believe that the end of Microsoft is near. I myself am banking on 2026. They did this to themselves, it is all on them. They pushed for borders they had no business being on and they got beat three times over. Yes, I saw the news, they are buying more (in this case ChatGPT) and they will pay billions over a several years, but that is not what is killing them (it is not aiding them). The stupid people (aka their board of directors) don’t seem to learn and it is about to end the existence of Microsoft and my personal vies is ‘And so it should!’ You see, I have seen this before. A place called Infotheek in the 90’s, growth through acquisition. It did not end well for those wannabe’s. And that was in the 90’s when there was no real competition. It was the start of Asus, it was the start of a lot of things. China was nowhere near it was not in IT, now it is a powerhouse. There are a few powerhouses and a lot of them are not American. So as Microsoft spends a billion here and there it is now starting to end up being real money. They are in the process of firing 10,000 people, so there will be a brain drain and player like Tencent are waiting for that to happen. And the added parts are merely clogging all and bringing instability. Before the end of the year We get a speech on how ChatGPT will be everywhere and the massive bugs and holes in security will merely double or more. So after they got slapped in the Tablet market with their Surface joke (by Apple with the iPad), after they got slapped in the data market with their Azure (by Amazon with their AWS) and after they got slapped in the console market with their Xbox System X (by Sony with their PS5) they are about to get beat with over 20% of their cornerstone market as Adobe gets to move in soon and show Microsoft and their PowerPoint how inferior they have become (which I presume will happen after Meta launches their new Meta) Microsoft will have been beaten four times over and I am now trying to find a way to get another idea to the Amazon Luna people.

This all started today as I remembered something I told a blogger and that turned into an idea and here I am committing this to a setting that is for the eyes of Amazon Luna only. No prying Microsoft eyes. I have been searching mind and systems and I cannot find anywhere where this has been done before, a novel idea and in gaming these are rare, very rare. When adding the parts that I did write about before, I get a new stage, one that shows Microsoft the folly of buying billions of game designers and none of them have what I am about to hand Microsoft. If I have to aid a little hand to make 2026 the year of doom for Microsoft, I will. I am simply that kind of a guy. They did this all to themselves. I was a simple guy, merely awaiting the next game, the next dose of fun and Microsoft decided to buy Bethesda, which was their right. So there I was designing and thinking through new ways to bring them down and that was before I found the 50 million new accounts for the Amazon Luna (with the reservation that they can run Unreal Engine 5) and that idea grew a hell of a lot more. All stations that Microsoft could never buy, they needed committed people, committed people who can dream new solutions, not the ideas that get purchased. You see, I am certain that the existence of ChatGPT relied on a few people who are no longer there. That is no ones fault, these thing happen everywhere. Yet, when you decide to push it into existing software and existing cloud solutions, the shortcomings will start showing ever so slowly. A little here and a little there and they will overcome these issues, they really will, but they will leave a little hole in place and that is where others will find a way to have some fun. I expect that the issue with Solarwinds started in similar ways. In that instance hackers targeted SolarWinds by deploying malicious code into its Orion IT monitoring and management software. What are the chances that the Orion IT monitoring part had a similar issue? It is highly speculative, I will say that upfront, but am I right? Could I be right?

That is the question and Microsoft has made a gamble and invested more and more billions in other solutions whilst they are firing 10,000 employees. At some point these issues start working in unison making life especially hard for a lot of remaining employees at Microsoft, time will tell. I have time, do they?

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Step by step, closer it gets

This is a weird story. It is a story, there are no facts, there is no hidden gem. It started last night. In my dream I was introduced to a lovely lady with raven hair, she is mid 30’s I would guess. Khaki shorts, stern boots and a Bordeaux sweater with an image on it. She is the vet, her love of elephants keep her there. She looks after the health of about 2 dozen Indian elephants. All signs point to this being India. I do not know where and I have never seen the lady before. There is also a man, an architect who looks a lot like William Petersen (CSI). He is trying to safe a building. The building is almost 2000 years old and is for now still functional. The building is made of large stones, some well over a ton heavy. The building has paint on the inside, and the building is starting to become too unbalanced to stay standing. The building is an impressive setting of stones, beams and large thick wooden sticks that are the separator between elephants and people. The building has supported both for millennia. The architect is trying to safe the building. He has scanned every inch of the building, every stone. He can see and look at the effect of shoring the walls, and this is done with thick oak pillars. As he investigates the stones he starts seeing patterns, the pattern becomes more and more clear as he resets the stability of two stones. As the stones are resetting to a firmer floor (concrete) some of the stones are suddenly straight lines and the architect is able to move them a little, even the heavier ones are set on stone rails from the larger stones. It takes three weeks for the two stones to be completely reset and now as he cleans the other stones and places them where they should have been, the sides normally against one another reveal texts. It is a story in time as well as a message. As ‘Grissom’ collects the scanned pictures and adds them to every stone in the 3d model on his laptop the story unfolds. More important the message seems to be connected to places and landmarks that are timeless around him. As he completes the story and looking at all the stones the message becomes clear to him, but he does not understand the message at this point. The markers lead to a well just north of the town. They investigate the well, they see nothing, so they go in, under water they find their way around only to resurface in a dark place, but that changes when lights are switched on. It is a temple to Ganesha, the statue of Ganesha is pure gold. His eyes are massive rubies and as he maps the location, they appear to be exactly below the elephant building. He also see what happened. Something gave way and one of the huge pillars sank, causing what was happening above. The statue has a small table with emerald tablets engraved with Vedic Sanskrit. The text is unknown to  me, I cannot say what way on it, but there was a lot of writing on the three tablets. 

Interesting dream. It could set the tone to a new script. There were a few loose thoughts on baby elephants getting stolen, but it seems to erratic to focus on that. What matters is that I was able to think of new IP in an area I never considered thinking, so perhaps this is the making of a new game, or movie or mini series (I was always partial to mini series). 

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Reflecting on reason

This we all have to do, sometimes a little more often than others. I do reflect on reason and I do so for several reasons. You see, when I put IP on my blog in ‘Girdle your loins’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) on the 30th of November. There was one element (actually two) that were not clear. The first was essential for part of the solution. It required Amazon Luna to be able to run Unreal engine 5 applications. That was essential for one of the elements of that solution. I did not know if it did. The second part was unknown to me. You see, I am coming at this from a very different angle. The Amazon people are all about whatever they are about. I was about creating safe spaces. An element that they all ignored. And they only got 270,000 subscriptions in a year. Here I am offering a new stage where they get 50,000,000 subscriptions. No wonder they aren’t taking me seriously, they have no clue what they could achieve. But I still have some faith in the Kingdom Holding Company. You see they get a few additional setting in this way, apart from adding initially merely 10% to their revenue, they stand to make a whole lot more and create new streams of revenue in that process as well. You see if one cannot see, the other might take notice and that is the place where I get to collect my golden retirement voucher to say the least. 

For Amazon it is less happy news, you see if I can see what they cannot spot there is a larger problem with Amazon and all the revenue issues they have is merely the beginning of a lot more cautious moves (like firing too many people). A stage where merely 1% of my solution implies a 200% growth to the Luna population in nothing to be sneered at. And that was merely the first phase. It is after that that the revenue really comes rolling in, merely because no one has taken that step before, they never dared to make such a move, but streaming allows for a lot more and that is where I saw opportunity and at that stage it becomes a lot more options, especially if you have the insight into social markets. For the Kingdom Holding Company there is a second avenue. If they purchase Google Stadia (providing it supports Unreal Engine 5) they could own it all and the others will merely sigh at the corner watching their streams shrink even further. The data point merely show the clusters making 800 million, that leaves another billion all over the place (including Europe and America) and that is the grow stage, but that is only in some part of phase one, the clusters are the best phase one representation and 50 out of 800 is realistic in a few ways, as such I stand by my guns and here I show what one is missing out on whilst the other could make a clean sweep. When this comes to pass two additional events happen. In the first Facebook will take a loss and not a small one. They will not lose people, but a chunk of that will share somewhere else, their timelines will diminish. Then the market opportunities in the Islamic world shifts and Facebook, Google and Amazon will take losses there too, which is funny as Google had the option (with Amazon) to take control, it is seemingly lost to them. Should The Saudi Government take one of the two as partner, the stage changes even further and that I when phase two goes into early acceleration with an optional 200,000,000 subscriptions making that solution the number one streamer and that is where Amazon (Google too) were asleep. They dared not think in those terms, not with only 250,000 subscriptions. But they looked in the wrong direction and with the wrong glasses, at that point you get to see a very different play area and a massive population that is interested, because they all overlooked the power of a safe space. 

So was I wrong? Was I delusional? I put most of it (not all) in my blogs. So you get to decide, but I feel certain I was always awake and looking in the right direction. 

It was really that simple. 

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Wakey, wakey Amazon

I had an idea, it is not my IP, even though it might be possible to create an innovation patent. You see, the original idea came from Hans Breukhoven who in the Netherlands created the Free Record Store in the early 80’s (perhaps late 70’s). His idea was that you could request a CD, any CD and it would be created on the spot. It never came to anything, because data speeds were not ready for this. He had the insight when 300KB/s CD drives were regarded as high technology. The idea was good, but the timing was wrong. Today I wanted to see/get the movie StarGate, I had not seen it for a long time and even though I have it on DVD somewhere, the Blu-ray would be preferred. At that point my mind started to think. You see in the same way that Spotify is destroying the music industry. Netflix et al are doing pretty much the same to the movies (not intentionally mind you). People are stopping to care about physical formats and that is where it soon will be at. You see when congestion hits (and it will hit hard), people will rely on anything to see a movie and that is where physical formats will come into its own right again. In that same way console games are hitting new spots and even as this is not a short term track. A system that can create games, 4K movies and so on might have a real future in metropolitan areas. There will still be a need for games and movies on disc and having it in stock when it concerns new releases does make sense. But what about a movie from 2018 and before that? What about a game that is 2020 or earlier? This sets the premise of thousands of titles. Yet in this day and age shops cannot have it all, there is no space and moreover, the money becomes scarce in their pockets. So what if a store had such a machine? You can order, you can pay upfront of online and you get a voucher and the time when to pick it up and that is when you pick up YOUR request. Now it might be ordering, but soon (within 2 years) devices can burn a 4K movie in under 5 minutes and that is when the setting changes. No longer a stage of waiting for stock, just go to the store and get what you want and considering that the stage contains thousands of movies there will be a real market soon enough. I reckon that by the time we get to PS6 and whatever Microsoft has, these systems will have the burners and when you order overnight, the next morning a quality 4K movie will be waiting for you. Optionally you can keep it on an SSD so that you can watch within minutes and the disc is created overnight (home systems will not have the high speed burners that commercial places will have). 

A setting that could be here a lot sooner than we think and a man named Hans Breukhoven paved that way 30 years ago. By the way try finding some of your favourite movies, how many are still on the market? How many does Netflix (et al) have?

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Is it me? It could be.

Today I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64171008) the article ‘Amazon to axe 18,000 jobs as it cuts costs’. OK, they published it 2 days ago and I do not watch every site every moment of the day (I have an actual life). So consider that I wrote ‘Girdle your loins’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) which was roughly 3 months after it was offered to three parties. It represents $6 billion in the first phase and up to $20-$40 billion in the second phase. Can anyone tell me why two days ago we get to see “Amazon plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs, the largest number in the firm’s history, as it battles to save costs”, here I was thinking that my idea could have saved these jobs and now that Tencent is 9-15 months away the options for Amazon are diminishing. Then there was ‘Overlooking the obvious’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/22/overlooking-the-obvious/) which actually also refers to an earlier article. There I set a stage with optional close to a billion in revenue with optional new corridors for AWS to grow, and with a new stage where we see a new need fro hardware and advertisement in new directions, Google isn’t even there yet. That billion was based on almost 200,000 malls globally, 116,000 of them in the US and that is before you realise how many stores players like Zara, Gap, Sephora, Apple, Victoria Secrets, Country life and that list goes on and on. So is it me or are these players too lazy, too cowardly and not in the right stage of play? And that is not even considering the hardware people might want, the options that are related to it and even several IP options that are not on anyones dance card at present. What are they doing? They are axing 18,000 jobs and they leave billions on the floor? What kind of technology firm is that? 

Now, you might think that I am delusional and I would think that too, but I refer to things I wrote in the past, something that could grow into a $20 to $40 billion A YEAR market. So tell me, how delusional am I? So I could be crazy, but I see clearly where this is going and even as there is some small risk (there always is), the fact that Amazon left it on the street gives me pause to think that they have a lot more problems and optionally different ones. Optionally it is in a direction I never considered. That is not their fault, it is not my fault, but they left billions on the street (as I personally see it) and there is even more IP (a little more risk), but as Meta becomes a reality it represents an optional $2.3 billion (my initial max assessment of the IP) as well. So as I take notice of “Boss Andy Jassy cited the “uncertain economy” for the cuts, saying it had “hired rapidly over several years.”” And there was me thinking he was on the ball. So even as I am not debating that decision, the idea of leaving that much on the floor, enough to give most of them an alternative and an alternative setting towards the future on a global scale implies that someone is not drinking the proper gatorade and they are going for the dodgy stuff, but that is my view on the matter and I could be wrong. I admit that part. When certain Big Tech (not Microsoft), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holdings give no response it is time to consider that I am the one who is wrong, but I feel that I am not, my mind is still mauling the designs over and over and seeing more and more improvements, even with Real estate sides, with 5G wearables that are not on any list at present. I believe that either I am a bigger dreamer than Jules Verne, or I am onto something. OK, lets be clear Jules Verne came up with the idea of a rocket to the moon long before WW2, as well as a submarine when it was still not possible to have one for such trips. The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine was launched in 1954, half a century AFTER Jules Verne passed away. So I might be a bit arrogant, but I see solutions that could impact the Line (KSA), malls and new forms of advertisement and none of those are part of the up to $40 billion (my maximum expectation), but that too is under debate. Yet that number is based on part of a 1.8 billion Muslim population and Tencent is a mere 15 months away at the most to do what I foresaw was going to happen one way or another. 

So, is it me? It could be. Yet I personally feel that this is not the case. As I see it some people have no idea what is possible and they are merely faking it for now. So what will they do when Tencent comes in and takes it all? Give you a lame excuse that they do not understand the technology? I will let you decide, but consider what we clearly see and what I published over the last two years. Yet, feel free to consider that it is alas, but these 18,000 people will have to go. There is no shortage for workers, is there? 

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Slice stab and bake

In continuation of yesterday, another go at that new game. The new game IP is basically free for anyone making this game an exclusive Amazon Luna game. I am all for Sony, but Sony does not need my help, they are doing just fine, as does Nintendo by the way. But we need to show Microsoft as the losers that they are and also make sure that they realise that is it perfectly legal and fair to buy franchises, but then so is my approach to give free creativity to their opponents making sure that every billion they spend will be twice as expensive than they realised and when my RPG ideas (and a few other idea) become reality they will lose even more gamers than they bargained for, making the Sony-Microsoft race go from 2:1 into 3:1 and all others get to have a 2:1. So that Microsoft becomes the new wooden spoon owner in the console game, a price they thoroughly deserve. 

So yesterday I gave the foundation of Tall. A new game for streamers (in this case Amazon Luna), and in my mind I had three player choices, so lets look at that part.

Slice, dice and slam
The fighter is the first natural choice. A man (or woman) with a sharp sword to filet the goblin population. It is a melee player, which gives it a distinct disadvantage. To its merit is that sharp sword so that one hit kills 1 or more Goblins, but goblins have bows, so that shield is some protection. The fighter is decently fast, but with a raised shied it is 20% slower. The main streets has corners, so there are more benefits but that is it. Over the run of the game, the dwarves will hand this fighter a much better shield, or it will upgrade its current shield. More shields over the course of the game give more protection, at reduced movement speed. In addition, the dwarves have different support over time, they create barricades into the smaller streets, so that the goblins cannot run away, or at least have less options to run away. And there will be medical dwarves, healing the fighter, but these dwarves have no protection, so you need to get to them before the goblins do.

Stabby, Stabby, pierce, pierce
The archer is a ranged player. It can pierce from a distance and that has benefits, but there is a downside, the first thing to go is the goblin bow, so as that breaks that goblin will run and return later with a new bow. Then we get the stages. 75%, 50%, 25% and dead. So 5 arrows will be required to kill one goblin. As the archer progresses, it will get better arrows and what was first 5 arrows will end being 2-3 arrows. The archer is much harder to hit by Goblins, so there is a natural protection, as the archer is elvish (he or she), there is slow regeneration and food regenerates a lot more. The dwarves will create stronger arrows and more arrows to keep the archer in a killing spree. Its upgrade will also include larger quivers as well as a better bow, furthermore I want to give it one more weakness like stamina, if not the archer becomes too powerful early and overall the game will be too easy. If over the game stamina increases, the game is better balanced.

Bake Goblin, burn
In the final person we have a he or she magic user. With a fire staff the goblins get to learn respect for the flames. Like the archer the bow goes first, but flames are less then arrows, but multiple hits will increase the burn factor, so 3 hits will be like 5 arrows, but over time and if the goblin is ‘safe’ before he dies, it will come back. The flames have some area effect, as such the goblin next to the one you hit will take 25%-50% damage depending on the distance. The fire staff can be upgraded in two ways, the staff and the gemstone. Over time the staff will also give lightning, which will slow down the goblin be a fair bit. The flames are hotter so that in the end 2 hits ends the goblin, the wizard also has the chance to upgrade the clothes, to be better arrow resilient. In the end there is a few more things we can do like the hat being a shield, but that is how I initially see it, the dwarves here throw mana potions in the track of the wizard, but they can be hit by goblins, so you need to get to them fast. 

The roads are a different setting and there too I have some ideas, but my mind goes back to the 1914 painting by Mondrian (as a map). It is an idea, but we need to look at a smaller setting like this in earlier levels and some streets are only walkable by Dwarves and Goblins. The game challenge comes from limiting options, not leaving them open.

So in a day I got two parts done, so why does it take Microsoft forever to get anything done?

Just a thought to ponder

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In opposition, meet tall

I saw the message, or lets just say it is directed BS from Microsoft. The quote (see below) called out Sony.

They claim that Sony is keeping them small. I say ‘BS’, they kept themselves small through stupidity. They were once a contender with the Xbox360 and it was a good system, but the board of directors at MS were short sighted, they set out a path of limitations, because they were just gamers. They set hurdle after hurdle to get more revenue and now they end up with a system that is defeated by Sony PS5 by selling well over 2:1 against the Xbox series X. This is not merely about console technology. I personally believe that the Sony system is superior, but I do believe that the margin is not that great. They lost too much with the Xbox One because they were stupid, very stupid. In addition to that the lack of exclusive games did even more damage. And of course there is the lack of credibility due to stupidity outspoken by Don Mattrick on June 12th 2013 “we have a product for people who can’t get online, it’s called Xbox 360”. There it shows that Microsoft did not understand gamers, it did not comprehend its market and threw it all away on that setting. A real competitor was washed as a has been from that moment on. And the board of Micro$oft did not learn, they kept pushing Azure, they kept on going blunder after blunder and now whilst they are trying to adjust by buying the important software houses, they will lose even more. Lets be clear, it is not wrong to do this. Everyone has done it to some degree and they started this stretch in a good way by buying Mojang. They did however miss the target by buying revenue through the acquisition of Bethesda and now Blizzard, even if the last one is contended. They kept themselves small. They will have good days (Starfield) and they will have a few really good launches, but the people have already shied away from Microsoft and that will take a lot more and the insult in accusing Sony angered me. So I am now making a new stage. I made a few before and I handed that IP as Freeware to Sony and Amazon.

This time around this IP is exclusive to Amazon Luna and anyone developing for the Amazon Luna can have this IP FOR FREE. The rule is simple, it must be an exclusive Luna title. So Sony is out on this one. Just to show that Sony creativity will prevail and Microsoft, where creativity is at an all time low, they will suffer again and again, especially as they are in the process of spending a total of over $100,000,000,000 whilst the others get it for free, that is the harshest lesson of creativity. The imagination is creates without cost, it is a perpetual engine that Microsoft seemingly never understood in the first place.

Tall
As such I created the idea of Tall. It is an isometric game. The story is that the dwarves are on their last legs, they are overrun by the goblins and they have the dwarves painted in a corner. It is not going good for the brothers of Gimli, but on one faithful day, you (hero you) comes in and helps out the dwarves. And this sets a start in motion, a start where the goblins could be defeated, or at least diminished as they will not be able to overrun the dwarves. The setting is that you have a choice of three heroes A fighter, a wizard or an archer. The idea is that they all have a weakness and a strength. Wizard and archer have the ability of range, the fighter has power and instant kill. But it is not that simple. These three can only be on the main roads of dwarf locations, they are too big for the small streets. As such the goblins can retreat more easily. 

But it goes further then that. On your trip you find gold coffers, different sizes shapes and colours. Some are for you and the dwarves collect it all. And set it on the markers that they are meant to go, some are for repairs, some are for upgrades and some are for you. There are more stations but you need a start. As you pass the first stage you will get a first upgrade (all get the same first upgrade), an armour that bounces 60% of all goblin arrows. After that the challenge increases and the race is on. You will face several cities and there is the need to lower the goblin population, each city has a barrel line. A mine-cart with barrels called barrel-rail that the dwarves use to get around. It needs fixing, the rails need to be cleaned and it needs to be reactivated. As the dwarves can get to areas of the city, the goblins have less chance to escape, as you get more treasures, some will upgrade the Dwarf Defense League (a DDL need if ever there was one). And as they upgrade they can reach more places, more survive and more of that place will become safe. And in the end (after all the towns) an evil wizard called A. Unarms (first name Abbott), an anagram for Saruman comes out and it will be a fight where the dwarves become the better supporting fighter as you cleaned out the previous towns more completely. The first town cannot get 100% clean, but every town is seen as complete when the 80% marker is passed. There is of course more, but this is the start and I created it with my mind in under an hour. Microsoft failed its gamers to THAT degree.

Believe me, do not believe me, it is entirely up to you, but better believe me that Sony never kept Microsoft small, they did that to themselves. 

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