Category Archives: Gaming

January 3, 2021 · 19:30

Building NPC faith

We all have it, faith in ourselves, yet in gaming it takes another turn and even as I am a catholic, religion in gaming is often a cautious stage, we might have liked faith in the Assassins Creed, but as it is a historical piece of work, there is not a real problem, yet what happens when you want to make an open world, what happens when you work on a new RPG? Setting sides is a larger problem than you think, unless it is a side no one has. So as I was listening to R.E.M’s Losing my religion last night, a thought occurred ‘What if I create one?’ It is not the weirdest idea, and I have had a few thoughts in a life philosophy for a long time, I just never considered using it in this way. 

Opposition
Yes, there will be opposition, there are people (gamers too) who wonder if religion should be part of any game, but in an RPG we have a reflection and like it or not, 95% of the planets population has some form of religion at their back, leaving it out tends to be a lesser idea. It might not be needed for action games who wield the religion of lead and boom, but in a sandbox setting, and anything a little more complex than Minecraft, religion tends to rear it (at times) ugly head.

In this I set the image of the ‘faith’ in a version like Rodin the thinker, three men, with backs connected, showing the three sides of a person. Holding a book (or scroll), the educated man, he thinks through, he learns and if need be, that person adapts. The second man holds a plant with a butterfly, the spiritual side, we are all part of a greater system, plants are part of us, as are the animals and as we accept that we are part of a greater system, we might find our place. The third man holds a shield, the physical, we do not go out to hurt, yet we must always be ready to protect from those wanting to hurt us. A setting of three sides, all seeking balance within us.

Premise of my origin
The origin I designed in the past (a long time ago) was set to a triangle, we are the triangle, we as couples are actually two triangles, each side is one element, there is a physical element (sports, or anything of a physical nature), there is an intellectual side (anything academic, or anything relating to comprehension) and a spiritual side, two of the elements are our foundation, we all have this, there is no exception, optionally just denial. As we find a partner with the same grounding (academic & spiritual) for example, we connect better as the sides of the triangle are more alike we connect better, longer and optionally deeper, As the triangles are closer to identical we are connected more complete, but this is rare, for example one might be all about physical sides, sports, hiking, camping, the other less so, so as the length of that line differs, the stronger it differs the less we align, but there are three sides, we align to the side that is the most in common, the educational side tends to be that, consider all the high school and university sweethearts, and there we see where eduction, with either physical or spiritual tends to have been the grounding of the triangles, I believe that as only one side connects, we are either a friend (or companion), a lover or a romance, with only one side aligned it does not last, parts of this is seen as the The Triangle of Love, but I believe that it goes with any of the three sides. The connection of two sides is required to make the commitment work, the more aligned the two sides are, the better the fit, if the second side is too unaligned the result is pretty much always the same, it ends in divorce (which doubled in the last 10 years), having an alignment of all three sides is utterly rare, I believe that for the most, brothers and sisters as well as twins share this, the love of their family, the need to equal, the drive to push both sides, it is something I merely observed.

So why do we care?
In gaming, there is the need to evolve the NPC character side and as such the triangle as given to any person, not through self evolvement, but in a premeditated stage would give a larger NPC alignment in many facets, and it matters because any game above a certain size either has a way to set the premise, or you need to set the premise for EVERY NPC, making the game almost impossible to manage. Yet if the physical, emotional and spiritual stage is set to one triangle as well as the interactions, you get a much larger stage with almost no event setting, you merely have to apply the same coded interpreter to all NOC, they all basically rely on the same subroutine. They are all guided by their own faith (their spiritual side) and as such you get a whole wave of options and as they are all influenced by elements that are not identical, we see an NPC  community that differs per player, a stage where we all adjust to OUR play style and more important, as the NPC does not react alike, we get a whole new game from day one. And many players have a setting that their neighbour does not. When one has faith in ones self, the game changes for all concerned, that has been a truth since the game Pong was designed, we merely adjusted the paddles to be a lot more interesting.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 2, 2021 · 23:25

Copyright? Copy left

As a trained IP attorney (minus the experience), I am always in line with IP and the traps and tricks are to some degree well known to me, so one question with any design my mind makes is “Is it more alike to the previous version, or not?” This is important, I have no doubt that making TESVII: Restoration myself implies that Bethesda (or their legal team) calls and demands all the materials I copied with an added cease and desist and that would be fair, IP is protected and I will not copy what is not mine, but a good idea is a good idea and that is a larger stage. As such, my mind has been considering a new version of seven cities of gold and when I saw new, I mean totally new. The part of exploration is pretty much the only part that not all mine, but that is too generic as such my version has options. 

As such the game is in two settings, the first one is the original world, with all the bells and whistles and the gamer can start (and should start there) so that he or she can get their feet wet. After this and after the immediate training, you can start a second game, a new game, yet this version will redesign the world, so you will be in a massively new area, an area that differs largely from the original. It will design a new map roughly 1000 by 1000 miles, you start in one part, and that is 200 by 200 miles. You get to explore, map, set sights and start foundations. You get to build a fort, from the fort you grow a trade post, from there a village, a town and if you are good enough a city. But it is not merely ‘building’, you have vassals for that. A city with infrastructure, religion, logistics, a setting that grows with every choice you make yet it is not that mundane. As I was thinking it through, I was listening to Jordi Savall, and a  consideration grew, what if music is part of growth? As the town band grows, its music increases, all production goes up, yet not always, some react to the beat, some to tempo and some to melody, as you set the stage for the local music, you set in motion a choice. We explore and we find, but there is a sort of randomiser in play, so not everything will be there, some parts will be, some will not, some area’s will have hides, a forest has lumber and as we explore what is and what can be grown, we alter the foundation of growth, the game needs to be entertaining, but it can be educational as well. When we played Civilisation, we had the research to make changes, what if something like that is in the game, but different? What if we had writings, but we set a larger stage with laws, we make choices, common law or civil law, later the introduction of accounting, criminal law and taxation, but they can only come into effect if certain conditions are met. And when the addition is made we see the larger benefit, politics, republic, monarchy, all choices that impact the bottom line of life, but we need to see the changes in a larger stage, the settings of natural laws, the benefit of a nameless religion (in the beginning there was a benefit), yet all these elements are in a different shape, this is not civilisation. So what happens when the world is a 1000 by 1000 miles and you can run through it all? Transport becomes important, we start with horses, and as we see more and more challenges, we can also fathom the impact. We get to shape the world as we see it, as we want it to be. Run around like in AC Brotherhood, but here there are no shops, no banks and no buildings, we get to build it all. Build to close together and space becomes a problem, choose the wrong location and you might be cut off from resources a town needs, we want an exploration game that is true to reality and the new consoles allow for that, cloud gaming allows for that. So when you see the AC Brotherhood map below, consider that 25 times the size, if the X and Y axes represented 10 miles, consider it now at 50 miles in each direction, and that is merely stage one.

What more, whenever you make a new game, you get a new map and you have no idea where you are so navigation and cartography become important, no YouTube in that space, in 1607 JamesTown was founded, consider that stage and see if you can do better, a game that has its own little sidesteps, because wildlife could kill you as you ride too far away, no option to get back in time, as such you will see the results of choices. Seven cities of gold was a great idea and what they got out of the CBM64 with 38Kb of space was pretty awesome, so we can take that idea and evolve it into something really serious and from there we get something entirely new, something never seen before, and all this in a third person view, not a top view that is map like, but the actual view, and consider that you might be playing a very different set of rules from your best friend, you can actually consider discussing what the best road to act is, a game setting we rarely see. 

Is it doable? 
I believe it is, the new consoles, PC’s and cloud consoles (Google Stadia) can easily deal with it, the question is, can it be done in such a way to entice the player to dip its toe in the exploration waters and see what will come next? I am game, but I am merely one view, there is a commercial side to this and a game designed to appeal to 10-499 people is not a triumph, it is a niche that has no place to go, it is the 3-5 million group we want to reach, that makes a setting achievable and something worth pursuing. It is merely my view on the matter, but I believe that banking on value for money is never a bad idea. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

December 22, 2020 · 11:26

An optional ignored path

It happens, we sometimes overlook it and it is not a bad thing, or an evil thing, it just happens. In the last week I have seen so many stories on Cyberpunk 2077 and the bugs that I wonder (after laughing on some of the Tik Tok issues), did we forget something? Some other articles made mention of this, as such, I am not alone, but for me this morning started when I looked into the Cyberpunk 2077 art book and saw what most forget, or optionally ignore.

Cyberpunk is a massive achievement. Yes, CDPR (CD Project Red) needs to be scolded for the bugs, but they did something incredible. They created a world, a world that only existed in the mind of William Gibson, who created cyberpunk with Neuromancer. The book is filled with game advertisements that set the tone “Real Water, only 99E$ /Gallon” with really small print disclaimers, yet the foundation is there, Cyberpunk is more than merely a game, it is close to a real sandbox where we see a new level of quality gaming (without the bugs), the art shows the people, the weapons, the ammo, the transports, it is more than nextgen, it is actual newgen, it is an attempt (so far not completed, or achieved) that sets Cyberpunk 2077 apart from all others and with the choices you make, you will be able to play, play again and play again, never being bored, because there are so many outcomes, options and choices to make. A game any developer could be proud of. The car brands, all new, but founded on brands and brand approaches to cars we see now, Herrera (Jaguar), Thorton (Tesla), a dozen brands all linking to what was, giving us what might be and the art never stops amazing, that is what we see and CDPR almost succeeded, so when the patch comes that changes it all, those who let go of their game will not be happy, I get it, they feel unhappy and they have every right to be, but I saw more, I will never let go of this game, it shows a world that William Gibson dreamed of and now the PS4/PS5 and its Microsoft equivalent get to show what could never be shown before. When the game is finally done, it ill be the greatest race towards VR that any game had ever achieved and then some. I just went through 192 pages of art, cyber advertisements and I see that CDPR did something wholly amazing and unequalled, when they get it right, they will surpass Witcher 3 by a fair amount and I never expected that to be possible. A (sort of) sandbox game that sets a new stage, because you can select stages to focus on, making the missions and optionally the outcome a different one, Net Running, Edge Running, Thuggery, corporate tools, the options are there and we limit or open to selections, something Bethesda never achieved (not their fault), so even as I understand ‘CD Projekt May Face Class Action Lawsuit From Investors’, where we learn that the attorney looking into the lawsuit is also an investor, we see a different stage, here we accept that CDPR is not proven innocent and that they might face issues, yet what all the shouters around the non-success at present fail to see is that this game is so much bigger than anyone saw coming, I wonder what would take the setting to be a successful one. In the first, just like I slapped Ubisoft, CDPR should not have released the game in this form, I will hold onto it, but I understand that others might not and that is a choice we all need to make, but the art book (I have the hint guide as well) shows that this game is more than some path walker, the makers tried to make something never seen before and if they fix the issues, they will do that and Cyberpunk 2077 will get a new narrative that ill hold for years and others will try to get close to this achievement, optionally forever failing. The difference with Ubisoft is that Ubisoft makes a new iteration (Breakpoint, AC Unity, AC Odyssey, AC Valhalla) and blows it, CDPR did something we had never seen before and blows it too, but the premise is already different. Ubisoft merely made version X, CDPR made version 0.8 and it is so much more than anything we had ever seen.

Yes, not ignoring the bugs, but beyond that is something new, something beautiful, beyond Ubisoft was merely more of the same and I expect that they will make the same mistake in FarCry 6. Yet when we see the Malorian Arms in Cyberpunk, we see something Heckler & Koch wishes that they had designed it. And all this and more is all over Night City, which is massively big. No matter how we slice it, and some will focus on the bugs, and I get it, they are there, what is also there is a diamond in the rough, a diamond unlike we have ever seen before, I just hope that enough will see that soon enough (after the new patches) to turn the tide around for CDPR, as fr as I can tell, even as I am happy to present, they might have been better off announcing a delay until February 2021. It might have been the best course of action for them at present.

One thing, and they might do it to make up to the gamers (if William Gibson agrees), get one of his stories, for example Neuromancer, or Johnny Mnemonic into the game and each chapter the gamer finds will opt for some skill enhancement, just an idea.

So at present, I merely did the intro, because I want to avoid the bugs and I am happy to wait, what I have seen clearly shows pure greatness (well the bug free edition anyway), it is a path some are ignoring and that is not their fault, or their shortcoming, it is their choice, and the bugs as they are makes whatever choice they make a valid one, I recognise that, yet after so much gaming mediocrity, I prefer to wait until there is a final version. As I see it definitely beats another iteration of Assassins Creed or Far Cry, yet not Watch Dogs, that one, apart from some glitches, they really got right.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 19, 2020 · 07:49

The completed list

It happens, we had a list and we completed it. It is nothing dramatic, earth shaking or revealing, it merely is, but it feels like we completed something larger than it is. For me that happened about three hours ago whilst I was contemplating upgraded gaming IP. There was a tank game that I had on the very first iPad, I conquered the game, completed most of it and at some point, I could no longer update that iPad, so I deleted that game (something I regretted more than once), anyway, on my new iPad Air, I got another game with the same basic approach, so I was happy, it was the only game, or app that was missing, now I have an iPad, like the first one, all the apps, all what I need and it makes me happy, it is nothing major, but like any completed list, you somehow feel like you really made an impact, I am no exception there. 

As such, my mind wandered into the upgraded Millennium 2.2, a game I originally had on the Amiga, I got the game somewhere on abandonware (I forgot where I left it), but I think that this game can be remade on Apple, instead of charging people, the game is initially for free, for $3 you can upgrade the game, as such, your plants on the moons work 20% more efficient, the miners will get 20% more and 2 additional resources can be found there. No ads, and all flyable units will be 20% faster. As such, the game can be played and those who love it will buy the upgrade, those who do not can complete the game in a slower fashion and watch a few ads. I also considered what more the gamer could receive, you see, the Amiga had no more than 7% of the power and available options that a modern laptop or even a tablet can have and as such, I think that the makers should consider upgrades. In the first, the solar generator part was way too shallow, in light of that, we should consider adding a part to that. Not merely a generator, but any part of the station (research, resources, life support and production, they all need their own generator, with a smaller addition to power the base as a whole. Research also needs an AI part, and of course that will only work with a more powerful generator, the stage of how much power there is for the AI decides on how much extra he can do, a small sub-game with two sides (not original mind you), one is based on the RAM game from Paradroid.

You get to choose the side, but there is no opposition, as you have more power, you get more bits, the more you unlock, the more efficient the AI becomes, then there is the second setting there the AI has to unlock any new section, not unlike the phone tap in Covert Action, Yet this part is depending on how good you unlocked the first part, a lousy generator means less options and less choices, as such, you have to create a new net every time you update, but you only update when a new segment becomes available.

And you do this for every station you create, but if you are creating a base on a moon near Saturn, you need a much more powerful generator to get anywhere near the basic power levels that the moon requires. OK, not all new and original, but one segment requires miners to go to the asteroid belt, there we can add originality by actually scanning asteroids and when we have done this for the first miner, we can lock the elements in and it will seek for those settings in every subsequent flight (to avoid dreariness), from that point onward a lot will stay the same (the original scored 90%), I wanted to add things as the game can be done in 20 hours, I wanted to add to that so that people will enjoy it much longer, but it remained a game that they can pick up when travelling and have a nice time whilst travelling. The original game sets us on the moon, as does the remake, but the original did not use the moon as a lore creator, there were probes for scanning, but I want to add to that (and if you unlock the full AI set), where we use the actual moon locations, to find debris that will allow more research. For example, the Hasselblad lenses on every moon lander are quite the achievement, they are still on the moon, yet these lenses will allow for upgraded scanners on probes, and over time will allow for more advanced scanning of locations. When we consider what the Americans, Russian and Chinese left n the moon, there is a lot more we can do, we can add to the original version, there defence was limited to a Launch Fighter, or to Activate Laser, when a rover is found we can have a Mobile Laser and when we get three rovers (one Russian, one American and one Chinese) we get Automated mobile laser, which is twice as efficient. We could even consider adding the Israeli Beresheet, should we find it, the laser becomes more powerful. So many options, not enough places to look. 

We can add so much more, without hurting or changing the original game. I had the same approach when I looked at a remastered Murder on the Zinderneuf, that is if EA no longer has a claim to that IP, and the less said on Seven cities of gold, the better, all optional stages for millions in micro transactions, without spoiling the fun for those who cannot afford that, if Igor Bukhman and his baby brother Dmitry Bukhman are any indication, I am looking at at close to half a dozen titles, each with the optional setting of 5-10 million, and in that it is not the silly sales notion of ‘what if’, it is the stage of ‘would you also like to’, the second stage might not seem like much, but when a person gets the option the choice to spend $3, it is all that is needed and a million times over that will start to amount to serious cash.

Will this be a new list? Not sure, I am focussed on my 5G IP, that does not mean I will look away from any new challenging puzzle that show the people that gaming can be fun and it is not founded on pay per challenge, it is the one part that Mass Effect 3 really got right. We forgot about that title, did we not? And even as we look at what other games can contribute, the setting of Covert Action, the stages of Paradroid and a leap towards 7 cities of gold are all stages (providing that the IP is available) that people overlooked, I cannot fathom why and that is before you consider that Ubisoft is also sitting on a few million that they seemingly forgot about.

We all have lists to complete, I merely wonder why some decide to leave theirs in some drawer collecting dust. Enjoy the weekend, and if you hear the US Secret Service knocking on your door, don’t forget that most of the US Administration has been hacked, they might not know where they are. oh… didn’t Activision have something on that?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 16, 2020 · 21:06

Dangerous conclusions

We all come to them, conclusions that are shaped in the mind, usually they are based on facts making them speculations, some are based on speculations making them pure delusions, some are in-between and that is the dangerous part, are they visionary, are they speculative delusions? The point is that the writer will see them as visionary, but the writer (even me) is not the best judge in this.

For the exercise I need to grasp back to a story I did recently. ‘Trillion dollar Musk’ was written on December 3rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/03/trillion-dollar-musk/), I there ‘accused’ Elon Musk that his value would skyrocket to $1.2 trillion collars. I also gave the readers “The UK (via the Guardian) inform us of “Britain’s electricity will be in short supply over the next few days after a string of unplanned power plant outages and unusually low wind speeds this week”, the UK has an increasing need for Scandinavian power and soon it cannot be met. I reckon that in the next 2-3 years that shortage will be close to systemic all over the EU”, the stage was set and I still believe that we are 2-3 years away, but are we? Bloomberg (at https://www.bloomberg.com/sponsors/jll/seven-ways-to-retrofit/index.html) gives us ‘7 Ways to Retrofit Buildings for Energy Efficiency’, it is a setting and it is sponsored by JLL, a real-estate and investment firm who gives us “We’re here to create rewarding opportunities and amazing spaces around the globe where people can achieve their ambitions. In doing so, we are building a better tomorrow for our clients, our people and our communities”, I believe that we are about to hit an energy snag, a little sooner than I anticipated. 

So as the JLL gives us 

  1. Upgrade you lighting
  2. Upgrade the HVAC
  3. Optimise Performance
  4. Implement a Waste Strategy
  5. Use Continuous Commissioning
  6. Organize “Treasure Hunts”
  7. Elevator Controls
  8. Added by me: Upgrade kitchens.

Now the Elon Musk battery shows the issues, even as we are now hearing more and more on the need for carbon neutral in commercial buildings, the private places are merely one step away.

Forbes reported in August “At first, the state’s electrical grid operator last night asked customers to voluntarily reduce electricity use. But after power reserves fell to dangerous levels it declared a “Stage 3 emergency” cutting off power to people across the state at 6:30 pm” and this is only the beginning. Elon is about to get a massive increase of value and his wealth might go up well beyond $1.2 trillion. 

It is not limited to California, although they are the most visible one, New York, the United Kingdom, and parts of Europe and Australia will see a drastic need for power sooner rather than later. At that point the rich we can ignore, they will get what they need, the middle income section, that is where the massive gains are made, a lot will add a growing carbon neutral stage with the adapted Tesla battery, the power grid adaptions for lights, Air conditioning, water heaters (boilers), fridges and freezers. There will be a massive option for growth there, the adaptation of AC equipment to DC equipment, a stage where some will buy new stuff and some will need adaption with new power units for both. I came up with a new sort of roof tile, made from recyclable plastics, and each tile will have solar cells, instead of putting panels on top (some will still do that), to tiles where people can grow their power creation stage, two tiles, the highest levels which connects to the second grid and the battery and other tiles that will connect to other tiles and a highest layer tile. The benefit of that is that people do not need to splurge on massive panels, with the battery they get tiles, but it is a basic level, as some need more power more quickly, more sets of tiles can be bought, giving the people months to grow their setting and reduce their carbon footprint. In addition, some will add wind-vanes. It is a stage that is as essential and as clear as traffic jams, we have been increasing power needs with an average of 5% per year. How long did you think that the energy companies could deliver? Consider your fridge, what you had 10 years ago and what you have now. Larger families needing more boiler water and the summers require more and more air conditioning units, all set to a lower temperature burning power away and California can no longer cope with the need. They are the first, but they are not alone. How many devices require a charger? In 1990 that was 1 perhaps 2, now it is 5-8 PER HOUSE, routers, Wifi modules, and the PC went from the ‘high end’ of 300 Watts to the average PC now needing 600-1100 Watts. In 1990 there were less than 700,000,000 globally that were into gaming, now that number is 2,000,000,000 higher (globally), two billion additional devices, the consoles do not use that much, but still 150 watts, times a billion is still a lot, they also need a TV running, now, the TV is actually a massively low energy user if it is a LED flatscreen. But the numbers are not looking good and that is before you realise that PC’s were something a company had in 1990, now, for the most, nearly every employee at every firm has one, there tend to be low energy versions, but they are still there and often they are on day and night. When you see this list and do the numbers, you need to see that energy firms needed to double their options in 2000, that never happened and now they need and alternative and Elon Musk has it, and owns the IP no less.

So is my version so much more visionary because Bloomberg had a sponsored JLL article? I don’t think so, but I believe that awareness is being created at higher levels and we need to catch on sooner rather than later, because the prices of electricity will go up again and again in the next 2 years. Consider your budget and consider your energy costs will go up by 10% in 2021, how much more budget will you not have?

That is the stage I foresaw some time ago, I will let you decide how right or how wrong I am.

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

December 11, 2020 · 23:36

What gives experience?

Hah! I did not give up, I persisted and it came to me. I was looking at a way to set levelling in the RPG game that I discussed in previous blogs and I have a handle on it now. You see, Bethesda was not wrong, they were merely incomplete (as I personally see it). They almost got it right in the past but they set a different premise (something they are allowed to do), as such, in the RPG I devised there is a different jump. The artisans, the members of arcane houses, they all have settings of levels, but they are all DIFFERENT. It took me a while to set that premise. So as I started to discuss them in ‘Playing the stage’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/18/playing-the-stage/), there I started with the House of Forests, and introduced the Floating house. It was in ‘Invoke the liquid mountain’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/20/invoke-the-liquid-mountain/) where I mentioned House of Chimes and I almost forgot about the Monks of the Sulphur Cave and the House of Bones. There is some (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/22/chimes-are-wind-translators/), and it did not dawn on me to make the levelling different for each class. As forests can only exist by preserving it, as such the power and levelling of druids come from seeing the sick trees and save them or kill them and replaced the killed tree by a new sapling. As his staff is instrumental it will be the focal point of experience and levelling. A similar (but not the same) approach can be used on the Monks of the Sulphur Caves. It is different for the members of the Floating House, the water specialists. It would make them swimmers and water breathes, but that would be too shallow, they are rain invokers and their experience is set to the amount of spells they cast. As I am showing now, I am not completely there yet, but as we are confronted with a player that has an arcane and an artisan cast, we see different levelling systems, you have to become more aligned with the person you create. Gender might no longer be a real concern, but the choice of arcane and artisan house more so. If we see this we are looking at one of five and one of four levelling systems, we will not now, not ever become all round specialists of everything, but that is the price we get for something new. It also sets a different focal point in taking out enemies and overcoming barricades in the game. It is perhaps not completely original, but in this shape it is completely new. We can be an expert, the expert, we merely cannot be the expert in everything, it seems lacking Zen, but I believe that this approach will make the game a more Zen experience. I reckon that this will also create an optional very new ‘New Game+’ version. Where we optionally reincarnate with part of the abilities of the previous life, but not the powers derived from them, an option to have additional stamina and a larger setting of magical hubris (read: mana), it is merely a stage and this gives me the setting where I designed the larger stage for a few options in less than 4 weeks all by myself (yay me). Or as I would optionally say “Ubisoft eat your heart out”, but that is just me. So I got some of the arcane done, a larger stage of levelling, now I need to concentrate on the larger main stories and some of the side stories. Perhaps I will put them here too soon enough. 

All this and it is not even midnight yet. Whatever will I do next?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , ,

December 11, 2020 · 20:54

A weird vindication

Yup, we all face vindication at some point, it can be ‘I told you so’, it can be ‘Yup, I watched it and it went exactly as I expected’, and it can be ‘You should have listened to me’, To be honest, I hope at times it is almost never the third one, there will ALWAYS be an exception, but the third one is laced in arrogance and I personally think that it is laced to deeply in arrogance, as such I tend to side with the first two sentiments. 

Now, this day started weird. I woke up from a slumber. We all have those moments at times, in this instance I had  sort of waking dream, so I cannot say what kind of dream it was, it might be a movie script, yet the setting was a little too surreal. It was in the Netherlands, apparently the Dutch Military Police (they also guard the royal family) had set a parameter where the non used royal houses were used as stash locations. They were instructed to investigate a reporter who had found a snippet of that setting and they decided to smear his career in several ways as to take focus away from those locations. They involved the foreign office to muddy the waters. It was a small group of less than a dozen agents, but the stage was sullied by VEVAK as one of its agents performed a ‘service’ once and they had an inside scoop on technology that was stored in one of the locations. As the foreign office operative was smearing the reporter, VEVAK had altered the information to the smallest degree, but it woke up Mossad and as they started to look into the matters the reporter as well as well as the crooked military police agent were all in their  alleged private hell and as Mossad as played in a few ways the criminal police officers had no place to go but towards handing over the technology to Iran. Anyway that is when I woke up, and I saw that I missed out on the first hour of the Game Awards 2020. 

So why is this vindication? The Last of Us part 2 (7 wins), Ghosts of Tsushima (1 win), Final Fantasy 7 remake (1 win), 9 wins, all Sony exclusives, that is what I mean with Microsoft being off their game by a massive amount, there were more non-Microsoft wins (Animal Crossings) as such the weakest console got the award when the most powerful console did not. Microsoft did win the   Sim/Strategy Game Award and the Flight Simulator that they have left no surprise, it is BEYOND amazing, fair is fair. But that is one title, in this game award show Microsoft was a larger absent force, to get to the top layer you have to up the game to a much larger degree, Sony did, Microsoft to a larger degree did not, the absence of Ubisoft needs to be noticed too, there is a larger stage and both Ubisoft and Microsoft are no longer in the centre of it, the fact that Microsoft got mentioned (in light of Sims) is fair but it is one in a stage where they used to be a contender to a much larger field, fo me this is an ‘I told you so’ event. 

The exclusives matter, if they rock the field they rock gaming, and this year is a sore point for both Ubisoft and Microsoft. I wonder what will happen next year. CD Projekt Red has fixing to do, yet they could end up taking some of the awards, There are a few more players, but the stage is shifting and in this there is a larger push for Sony to rule the complete center stage. The 9 awards are a clear indication of that. It was always hard for any fight between two Sony titles, as such there is a little surprise that Ghosts of Tsushima only got one, but the competition was fierce and The Last of Us part 2 was a price fighter here. No matter who of the two won, the players and the gamers in the end they won, especially if they had both games. So as we are about to enter Saturday I will continue on the RPG I was working on, still haven’t worked out the new levelling system, well actually perhaps in part I have, but I need to think through whether it will not become too chaotic. In gaming chaos is fine, in programming a little less so, it allows for too many bugs and glitches to creep in. Innovation is cool, but the path towards it, often enough, less so. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 11, 2020 · 11:07

Tripped by a thought

Yup, this happens. We watch things, we read things and it mixes into an idea. The first element in this was the movie Kingdom of Heaven (by Ridley Scott). I love this movie, for some reason it feels more real than any of the other movies that are founded on the crusades are. There are a few other reasons, there is always a good reason to watch any movie with Orlando Bloom and Alexander Siddig and the fact that it also had Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons and several others did not hurt that cause either. I was struck by the charisma that Ghassan Massoud brought to the screen in Kingdom of Heaven. That movie is pretty much forever in the back of my mind. The second element was something I read. The quote “An ifrit can further be bound to a sorcerer, if summoned”, as well as “In the latter account, the “ifrit among the jinn” threatens Muhammad with a fiery presence, whereupon the archangel Gabriel taught Muhammad a Du’a (Islamic prayer) to defeat it”, this struck a chord as it is the only reference I have seen at present where Christian faith and Islamic faith crosses (perhaps there are more). But it got me thinking. What happens if an Afreet, a dweller of the sands is confronted by the invasion armies of the west? The Crusaders, the Templars, the Teutons, and some of these organisations still exist today. So what happens when an Afreet goes on a quest to understand the enemy of its sands? The idea is not entirely new, the Afreet made an appearance in True Blood and in American gods, but in both cases it is less seen from the view of the Afreet, and as a demon they are part immortal, or at least can exist for thousands of years, anyone with that level of timespan has a different view on matters. As such the Afreet can be in the past and the present giving us a very different stage.

We have been so obsessed with the western folklore, that we forget that there is a large area of folklore that has almost never been tapped into and when we consider that Netflix is present in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, I wonder why we get this oversight. Of course they can also go for the other movie I came up with ‘How to kill a politician’ which optionally might be a big hit in the Islamic world, it might not be something that a person like Geert Wilders likes, but it is a door he opened himself and France added spice to that soup. 

All options I did in mere hours, as such I wonder what is keeping some so called creators in creating actual new stuff (instead of a new version of old stuff). It is as I personally see it the difference between iterative and innovative. A stage that America is shifting in, they are moving more and more towards iterative because they can no longer find the innovative people. A sad state of affairs as I personally see it.

Is it me? Am I tripped by a thought, or am I seeing it correctly that we are missing out on true innovation in both movies and TV series? I am not ignoring the stage where we are told that there are “In 2019, the number of original scripted television series in the United States hit 532”, I am not doubting that, I am merely noticing that other places in the world, these series are missing, or not shown. And to be honest, I have my doubt on all 532 series being actual innovative series. There is nothing wrong with iterative series, but they are a prolongation of something else. Another CSI, another NCIS, another Star Trek, another Superman. I will agree that there are plenty of fans for them, but at times we need to offer something so new people gasp at the notion of difference. I get the setting that this does not always ends up being positive (Firefly, Dollhouse) but they were true innovations, they were different and they have scores of fans, but it was not meant to be. I get it and perhaps my ideas will never become reality either, but I remain innovative in my thinking, it did lead to several 5G IP parts and I expect a few more in the coming year. 

Yet in this I do not pursue a path, I let it was over me just like the Afreet did, just like the soon to be dead politician (in the Movie) and the stage of being between two universes (Keno Diastima), a stage I found in mere hours, yes I agree they are not finished, yet I did most of the work by myself in mere hours. So I wonder what others are capable of making, even if we do not see these results on Netflix, Stan, Youtube or TV. I wonder what became of the 532 series, because so far what we get to see is “Find Out Which Series Will Return for Another Season”, a stage that we accept, but there is more then returning series, they are an accepted and essential part of TV (and streaming), but where is all the new stuff? 

It is a thought that is tripping me and making me trip (to coin a phrase).

And all this is happening whilst I am trying to find a new and original way of levelling up a character in the RPG I have been writing about. We tend to see RPG’s in missions, kills and achievements. I want the levelling to be different, but I am still seeking a way, perhaps I will return to the mission stage of levelling up, but I am trying to avoid it, an RPG can only stand on its feet when it offers more and different stages, not merely more of the same, we have all seen that and as such I am considering other methods, yet the thought of how is not clicking into the frame of mind and the frame of gaming, yet I hope that to be a temporary thing for now.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 5, 2020 · 22:18

Add one more

This started a week ago when I wrote ‘8 missed opportunities’, I had been pondering a few issues and I was wondering whether it was a fair call what I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/28/8-missed-opportunities/), and whilst I was pondering that, my mind being slightly preoccupied with “The Aeneid of Virgil”, I suddenly had this brain twist for an idea that might work on the Apple Arcade, the Google Stadia and the Amazon Luna. I named the game ‘Kick the Arcade’, a game optionally 2 players online (in co-op), a side scrolling game, not unlike Streets of Rage (SEGA Megadrive), but there is a difference, this game grows over time. An idea that the game has 20 levels, every 5 levels a boss and in each set of 5 levels an arcade, where one machine can be kicked (hence the title) and you can free the hero in that machine. At that point, you unlock the hero and after defeating that boss of these levels you can switch to one of the unlocked hero’s and continue the fight on those levels with different enemies. I was thinking of one little complication. When someone joins you that person can only select one of the unlocked hero’s and at that point, it might be your levels, but the enemies are the ones of the second player hero, it would be a whole new level of challenges. Consider all these great side scrolling levels, Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, Green beret, Ghosts n Goblins, Golden Axe and the list goes on, there is still the issue whether the IP is locked, yet this idea basically washed over me in minutes, so what is keeping them making new games? Yes, Google Stadia at present has an interesting list of games, but lets face it Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris (2014), Hitman (2016), Destiny 2 (2017), they have originals, but they need more originals, a console is defined by what others do not have, not what others ALSO have. And this is happening whilst 7 announced titles are apparently no longer coming, so if Google is all about being googly, be Googly!

Set yourself apart, because no matter how the presentation looks, there is every chance that most people will not be able to tell the difference between Apple Arcade, Amazon Luna and Google Stadia, when that happens, there is every indication that Apple would win by default, is that truly what we want?

I am not stating that Apple is bad, but I expected more from the out of the box thinkers (aka people at Google). No wonder I have the 5G IP that Google does not have, ah well, such is life. 

Even as we see ‘opinions’ like “Google’s Stadia was always going to fail, but a new report claims that the issue isn’t missing features or a tiny game library. It’s Google. … “Google didn’t offer them enough money, and they don’t trust the mercurial company to stick with gaming in the long term” and here we see two parts the important part ‘they don’t trust the mercurial company to stick with gaming in the long term’, it is the long term part, yes it is a fair call, but it comes with the dependancy on others to fill your chest with treasures, the selfish corporate settings we see all over the place gives a clear signal, they bring something that is exclusive and unique, or you are forever in a stage where you are not the first focal point. We have seen this a few times over (Bethesda anyone?), and as such the fickle state that Google tends to be on at present is partially forced upon them (corona viral distribution and change) and part from within, they are spread too thin and they are in too many places, as such Tracker smurf (Sundar Pichai) is optionally losing oversight, or he is too many places too often, take your pick. But the critique offered is not all empty. I do not care too much for ‘Google didn’t offer them enough money’, either there was no real commitment on the $$$ price or someone didn’t negotiate too well, no matter what the reason is, I find it lacks focus. As I see it, the old games would be an optional saviour, 1-2 dozen games rewired in better graphics, optional additional sides to the game and the stage is soon a different one, but does Google have the drive? The idea that ‘the long term’ would optionally translate into Google ending third in a three man race (with Apple and Amazon), it is the one outcome I would never have seen coming and perhaps that is also what Jeff Bezos is expecting with the Amazon Luna, the idea that he ends ahead of Google must be absolutely intoxicating to him. 

So in the end, I didn’t merely added one more idea, I have added a setting where Google is not leading the waves and that is a little weird, but if that what the googly people have decided on, that is how it will be, and if they do not want that one part, they will see other parts see a reduced setting soon enough as well. Consider the people expecting top notch from Google, when they take their market to Amazon the game changes and I would never have expected that to happen, yet that is what we face, a setting that is no longer imaginative, something that comes with anticipating expectations, options that are offered away from one and towards a player that started as an online bookshop. I will be honest, I never saw that coming a year ago, but that stage is now getting a little bit too real. For if the Googly people turn down the innovations, what else will they abandon?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

December 1, 2020 · 21:36

Post Scuttle-but 5

Yup, rumours, we all see them, we all hear them and sometimes they are true. So as we consider the digital media need to get people to click, we see a tidal wave of PS5 issues all over the internet. Things like ‘Reports of PS5 ‘Stick Drift’ Surface Weeks After Launch’, ‘DualSense Controllers Are Already Suffering From Drift, Apparently’ and it goes on. Now, rumours are not new and perhaps they are true, in some cases. I had issues with my Switch controller after a year, it was the left one, but I am not a standard user. I agree that these things happen. I never had issues on my CBM64 (after I bought a proper stick), never had an issue on the PS2, PS3, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360 or Xbox One. Yet the proper gaming sites do not give me that news, Eurogamer did have in October ‘Class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for alleged Xbox One controller “stick drift” now includes the Elite Series 2’, in this case with Eurogamer I will give them the benefit of the doubt, they are a decent place for gaming news and ‘class action’ does not mean that there is larger validity, it is merely a legal setting and as I stated, none of my Xbox systems EVER had a controller problem. Like many I had the red rings of death, but Microsoft sorted it out in a decent way. Will the PS5 go that way? I have absolutely no way of knowing, but the controller is comfortable, it works well and it shines nicely. It might happen, it might not, but the sites making these proclamations are not sites I trust. They all want you to click on them, so I did and whilst some might have an optional case, the fact that they added ‘Apparently’ in the headline is some form of doubt on their part. So why is it a case? We seek out the positive and negative and the digital funds stations all love a ‘click bitch’, as such they flame and they exploit, and whilst some of the ACTUAL gaming sites give us plenty of goods, they also tend to give the bad news when it is out there and confirmable. I did notice that the day I set up the PS5, a controller driver was updated. Was that. Solution for an issue I never faced? Possible, we might never know, or I might see the same issue soon enough. The fact that a size 7 controller (Nintendo Switch) had an actual malfunction dealing with the stress factors of my size 11 hands is fair enough, the fact that it was able to keep up for a year is a good thing. In light of all that, will my PS5 hamper and give errors? Possible, but so far my PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4pro never had issues, my PS4 did, but at my own silly stupid hands, not the fault of Sony. We all face these moments in time. My PS4 controller had an issue, but t my own hands, and only after 7 years of intensive use, and I mean INTENSIVE! As I see it Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony brought me controllers that for the most, outlived the console. This is worthy of mentioning. Now, I never got any of the Elite controllers, so I am reserving judgement, yet if that thing is anywhere near the other controllers, we are in good hands. So, back to the Eurogamer article (at https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-10-11-class-action-lawsuit-against-microsoft-for-alleged-xbox-one-controller-stick-drift-has-been-updated-to-include-the-elite-series-2) here we see “the updated paperwork now adds seven additional plaintiffs and asks that the case goes before a jury, as well as appending more detail about the alleged defect”, as such we are given “Microsoft does not disclose to consumers that the Xbox controllers are defective, causing the joystick component to fail. Members of the general public have the right to know the latent defects with the Xbox controller components”, so this might be the case, yet before I bash Microsoft (yet again), I feel that it is important to take notice of a few facts. It is a year old, pretty much sold out everywhere, and overall there were complaints to which Windows Central gave the consumers “Microsoft has acknowledged the problem and is investigating”, this does not invalidate the class action, the wording seems to imply that Microsoft made (yet again) a stupid mistake. The claimants might have something to complain about, yet the number of Elite 2 controllers is in the wind, so this impacts dozens of controllers out of a batch of thousands. As such Microsoft optionally faces a minor issue, but they face one non-the-less. This also impacts Sony, who seemingly sold 2 PS5’s for every Xbox, and a 2:1 stage is nice for Sony, who apparently is out of stock until the end of next month. That is a good setting to have, and one I expected. Microsoft is missing out yet again and they merely did this to themselves. Although, tactically, by buying Bethesda, they do have  larger advantage, as the Bethesda fanbase is in the millions. Still, overall, as there are no new Bethesda games (at present), Microsoft will see an increase, will it meet the 3.3 million that Piers Morgan apparently stated is something I put a question mark to. I reckon that it barely will make the 3 million mark and when congestion hits (when, not if), the digital versions (both Sony and Microsoft) will hit a snag and in that Sony might overcome it a little faster, this is speculation, but the amount of system updates (between Sony and Microsoft) gives Sony the advantage. Microsoft had too many of them, and they had them too large (by my consideration).

Still, the systems are a decent match to one another, and yes, I am not ignoring the Verge who gave us ‘Why is the PS5 outperforming the ‘World’s mot powerful console’?’ (at https://www.theverge.com/21718936/xbox-series-x-ps5-performance-game-comparison). Here we see “With the Xbox Series X capable of 12 teraflops of GPU performance vs. 10.28 teraflops on the PS5, most onlookers expected there to be a small gap between the consoles. Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox also has higher levels of memory bandwidth and more compute units, but Sony offers developers less compute units running at a variable (and higher) clock rate to extract better performance out of the PS5”, as well as “the Xbox Series X version of Valhalla includes a lot of screen tearing and regular dips below 60fps. The PS5 version appears to run a lot more smoothly. Variable fresh rates do make up for this screen tearing on the Xbox Series X”, which I reckon when we see all the Xbox AC Valhalla advertisement, is funny as hell (or is that hela?) Anyway, the stage we see is littered with rumours and it is important for gamers that you check EVERYTHING you hear with a proper gaming site and for the most, if 2-3 decent gaming sites do not mention it, dump the gossip where it needs to be, in the trashcan. As such, when we consider everything, you can expect plenty of games having patch after patch after patch.

So feel free to get whatever console you want, but be certain to check decent gaming sites on the console you want, and ‘decent’ gaming sites  exist, there are however less than a dozen really good ones. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,