Category Archives: Gaming

November 7, 2020 · 01:49

The new setting

I had a partial start on Bethesda’s Elder scrolls, but not one for their Fallout series. You see, you do have the right to sell your IP to a third party (Bethesda to Microsoft) and set the agenda of forcing a million dedicated players into the arms of what I personally see as a disreputable solution for gaming, but I am entitled to create IP free for Sony exclusive solutions that offers the people an alternative. The idea that I am handing out free dedicated IP for Sony developers was probably not in consideration for Microsoft (who paid $8,500,000,000 for Bethesda software), yet the idea of me handing out free lollies was not on their mind either, and PS5 directed IP even less so. 

As such here I am watching Jason Bourne on Netflix whilst my brains is considering a larger stage for a radiated world to survive in. Yes, I can’t just be like any other normal guy enjoying porn, no my mind has to create puzzles and RPG settings, life can never be simple, can it?

Whilst I was starting all that, there was a larger (read: additional) stage I wanted to create. A longer stage. An idea to interact the PS5 with both (read: either) Android or iOS device, creating mini games that give an additional stages to the game. It can all be done on the PS5, but I considered that some games are interesting if an element gets added (for free), so here I am considering my old NBC knowledge the decontamination parts that were not really in the Bethesda games. Yet that part could be a stage in the game, finding the plans, creating the solution and managing it. Even if it is part of the game itself, management parts of that game can be set to automatic (after the elements are set), but if we create management apps, giving the player an added 30% return on doing so, we create interest, the need to participate. 

The game needs an enticing environment, yet we have seen so many games in the US, What if the stage is not there, but the setting is Stockholm? It is relatively close to a lot of places and what if we use that setting to create a haven, not like in other games, but one that requires fresh water, fresh meat and of course a red wire collecting images of the Swedish bikini teams between 1975 and 2175, fair is fair, and if you play a girl, you get to find the collector cards of Swedish fireman and park rangers (fair is fair). We just know (read: assumption) how you ladies want to see images of Alexander Skarsgård and Peter Haber, fair is fair after all. Yet we need more than simple alternatives for snow globes or pip-boys, but the setting is one that needs adjusting. We need more than a race from item to item and that is not by creating places to are to, but by creating a narrative that goes beyond what w expect, that shows the larger stage of the repercussions of radiation, not by taking pieces away from the adventure, but by adding to it, by creating an additional awareness, one the previous games only hinted at. I am not blaming the games, they were and till are fine games, but I want to create something new, not by creating a copy, a copy is second rate, yet if we skate on the fringe, if we add to the narrative we et something new and that is the are for the gamer, that is the race for those who love to play games, to get more, not to merely get more of the same. The difference is distinct and gamers know this, I know this, so we get create more as we create something new, something that differs and is different. 

That is the challenge, that is the perspective we require, one we have not faced before. It is how I got to think out the Palyar prerogative playing in Amsterdam, that is how I got the previous answer to a new IP, holding an answer to Bethesda and the Elder Scrolls and over the setting of Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration, which I came up with in the past. A setting to Watchdogs IV and a few more ideas, all new IP, all in advanced concept stages.

Life tends to be about new settings, for the most it is about adapting to them, for some it is about creating them.

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November 5, 2020 · 22:28

Rule of thumb

It started with me wondering what else I could do. I have been involved with gaming since 1984, I started testing and reviewing games in 1986, so I have been around for a while. I met the giants in gaming. Sid Meier, Richard Garriott, Peter Molyneux and a few others. They and the games they made formed the views I have on gaming, there are of course more others too. 

My normal job was in technical support and teaching, as such I had a firm grasp on technology. I learned to teach, teach software and technology and as such, my life was a decently happy one. 

Still, I wonder what else is possible, you see only the delusional ones think they can do everything. I agree that any person can do anything and if they are given, committed and enthusiastic, they become good at it. I believe that to be true for everyone, no matter gender, race, religion or age. 

It kind of intertwines with the elections in the US, after 4 years we see a shift and now I wonder if anyone in the media has the balls to set an image of Donald Trump tomorrow on page one, with the text “You’re fired!”, providing Joe Biden gets the 270 he needs. I wonder when that stage will be reached, and if it will be reached. They all claim that Biden will win, yet there is a decent. Chance that Pennsylvania will remain in camp Trump, with 89% counted and 20 votes, the advantage of 2.6% there is no given that Biden will win and even if he does, the difference is too small, so a recount is inevitable. In Arizona the roles are reversed, yet here only 11 votes are up for grabs, giving us the optional score of 254 for Biden and 234 for Trump, it is a setting weirdly close and like the old series the West Wing, two states might set the end and at this point President Trump has the lead. Those three sites are Georgia and North Carolin with 16 and 15 votes. I am careful not to set the stage of what might be, I am Republican minded, but I am definitely no President Trump fan. So as I take notice of ‘‘Stop the count!’: Angry Trump supporters amass at counting centres’, I wonder just how stupid Trump fans are to call for an end to democracy. A vote is a vote and they should all be counted, that is how democracy works. And this is where the brain started to twist. Whenever we are in any RPG, it is about our actions, it is about what WE decide should happen. It matters not what the RPG is, that is how the game is set.

But what happens when we change that, what happens when we sign up for a game with a political stage? What happens when our actions becomes pro or counter RPG government? You see, when I initially designed the idea of Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration (before they gave their soul to Microsoft), I had not considered it, yet in MEA 1+2 and optionally Citadel: Incursion (I had to give it. Name), that stage becomes a larger issue. Politics is at the fibre of any stage and we ignored it in RPG to a larger extent mainly because of system limitations. The new systems will have computing power in abundance, so it becomes less of a hindrance and setting that stage to a proper foundation, especially in a game like Mass Effect Andromeda is has an influence, because as we unlock more and more pods to wake up, the political stage on a station like the nexus will also alter, it sets a larger stage, a larger application of what we need to do. Even as the stage is not always on what we need to achieve, the general direction will alter and so fr no game took this into account (as the systems weren’t powerful enough). 

This changes what gaming provides, yes we like to make decisions in our RPG and that does not change, but there is the greater good and the larger picture to consider, it becomes even more interesting if that picture is not available to the player, the story could take a few interesting twists along the way. To illustrate that, we can look at a TV-series called Babylon 5. When we were in season 1, we see the Narn, Centauri, Minbari, Humans, Vorlon and others. Yet the Narn and Centauri are arch enemies, so working for one makes the other off limits and that is a mere extreme example. If we decide to act alone, we might side with one group and optionally piss off another, it is the nature of the game and gaming will become less black and white and more grey tones. It is also a lot harder to program. For example it is not like in the old The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you could only buy certain houses when certain fame levels are reached.   Yet what happens when fame and infamy are more fluidic? What happens when missions are only offered to the infamous (or famous) and above certain ranks? It will not change the game, but it will colour the stage to some degree, that same stage will be influenced when we colour a governmental stage, like the US, Blue, Red and Green. We see a larger stage where working for the ‘other’ party is allowed, but at that stage, we gain infamy a well as political points. See it as a new complexity level in RPG gaming. There is no doubt in my mind that this is where we are heading, mainly because it os now possible to do just that, and as we see the need for games with a larger value to replay a game, the setting of another level of complexity is pretty much a guarantee. We might want to lean back and reach back to the original D&D rules of thumb rulings, but I reckon that console gaming has surpassed it a few times over. Even as Ubisoft stated in a game ‘Cull the herd’, that stage is one we seemingly walked away from. We do not oppose the eradication of the horde (it’s an Orc thing), but it also leaves us open to eradication as well. And as such we need to set the stage to a larger frame, because that is what we do.

Extremes are nice to colour the stage, but it is the blending of values that give a larger appreciation of any story, there is plenty of evidence out there and as I see it, there is a much larger stage to fill it up, how it is done is up to the gaming visionaries.

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November 5, 2020 · 02:19

The edge of IP

Yup, another bout of insomnia, another idea in the IP range. I state this casually and carefully, because even if the stage is altered, there might be a setting where it in not entirely my IP. In the first I came up with a new Mass Effect Andromeda, I wrote about it previously and to make the story fit, the game would contain a remastered and rewritten part one (the bad version we saw in 2017), a lot would be used, but the game would be different, even if the planets are not. That was only part one, the stage of part two is in three parts, the Nexus, the missing ships and 5 additional planets. Also we would revisit the planets that were cleaned up with a lot of additional materials. Yet my mind kept on racing. It was the Prothean Vigil VI who gives us “They used the conduit to gain access, but the conduit is only a prototype. The portal only links in one direction, so they were trapped on the station. I do not know what became of them there, it is unlikely they found any food or water, they suffered a slow grim death”, the game is 13 years old, and I have lashed out to Microsoft on a number of occasions, but this one, this one they got right, and the second game was even better the the first one, optionally one of the best RPG games EVER produced. 

So what happens when a group of people makes it to the Citadel, about 2 millennia after the reapers. The station cold dark and we get to see the restart of the station, the keepers are setting the parameters for races to come, yet what happens when teams Humans, Salarians, Drell, Turians, and Protheans make it to the Citadel? Not the original station as shown in the game, but the station in its complete complexity. Each race starts in the original building that was meant for them, as they could dock there, but after that, it becomes a chase, a challenge, of puzzles and wit to survive, to create the stations energy settings, the interactions that are required and not to mention as you play one race, all the others become NPC’s, with the option of a previous completed race to use your achievement as a template to equal. Something like that has as far as I can see never been done before and to that extent wasn’t even possible until the PS5 (and its Microsoft equivalent) were released. Not to mention there is every chance that the Google Stadia might keep up, so that is three, all whilst it would be possible to link a friend and set his milestones as one for one of the NPC’s. 

You might wonder why that and not a new station, a new environment. Yes, that is true, but to create all the races and all the settings takes a lot more and these races have been clearly established, also there is a danger that we might inadvertently copy parts of another Citadel station (System Shock), as such I wanted to get head of the curve (as I am not getting any sleep)

It would still be a large undertaking, The idea was bugging me when I was redesigning MEA and MEA2 in one package, the setting of the size of the station was never that clearly represented, also the cryogenic unlocks made little sense, there was too little pro and con options. A setting where we see the plusses on one sided and we weigh that, all whilst the minus side was largely ignored. So as I went out to create a new version in my mind, I kept on looking at the larger stage, the larger needs and it kept on kicking me back to Citadel station, especially the parts we saw in ME1 and ME2, I thought it was time to kick it in another direction and this is what I came up with in a mere 2-3 hours. 

Consider the screenshot, it is part of the citadel, 5 arms, one arm holding dozens upon dozens of skyscrapers, each building (or at least several of them) explorable, yet there is also the danger of that needle and haystack expression, there needs to be a clear directive on what is required, what are we seeking for, and not all are in the same arm, so paths are needed, airlocks, and larger cargo spaces so we can travel between the arms, yet the keepers (now under clear Reaper control) must also be avoided and changes need to be done whilst they are not looking. All whilst ever building is getting cleaned and sanitised by worker drones. 

It becomes a much larger setting and it might be one that the explorers under us (Dora too) might like to get a handle on. And let’s not forget, there are 5 teams, optionally some with advanced knowledge. All this and the Andromeda challenge too? What a luxury! I would love to make it a Sony exclusive, but Microsoft already has the beat on the IP, so if there is exclusivity, it might be Xbox (something I really would not like).

Well, it is 2:14 now, I have no idea what I will come up with next, but I got roughly 4 hours until the sun comes up and I forgot my Maui Jim glasses. 

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November 4, 2020 · 21:03

Pointless versus useless

Yup, consider that part and consider just how useless government oversight really is. To show this we get to the articles about three weeks ago, I noticed them, because I had the aggravated issue with deceptive conduct in advertisement for a while. Several sources give us ‘Ban for annoying puzzle ads which don’t represent the actual game’ (or a version thereof), with the sub-line “The Advertising Standards Authority has banned ads for Homescapes and Gardenscapes”. I have nothing against the game, but any match three game is rigged from the start, it is a clever way to get you to try and perhaps you will make a small purchase, and then she are caught in the addictive need, some just quit. I am ahead of the curve and I steer clear of all these match three games. Yet, The people behind these games (not just these two, others too), made an actual brilliant advertisement jab at the games giving us a DIFFERENT game where you have to select a solution, as such we see “Paid-for Facebook posts advertising games with puzzles – but which did not represent the vast majority of actual gameplay – have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)”, this is what got to me too and when I saw the news, I was happy. So what happened today? Gardenscapes advertisement (the bad one) now shows up in Fallout Shelter in the iOS version, as such it seems to be bloody pointless. Perhaps it is the price for $8.5 billion, perhaps it is the price of joining Microsoft, yet these so called banned advertisements are back, or they never left. Sometimes vacation does not end, it merely changes location.

This gets me to the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/8593c8b5-5a98-4002-ac5a-68b59fbb6463) which was given to us in May with the headline ‘Russian brothers behind ‘Gardenscapes’ emerge as lockdown winners’, and we also get “Two Russian brothers living in London have emerged among the big winners of the lockdown, with their mobile games Gardenscapes and Homescapes making $200m from in-app purchases in April alone”, which sets the station that when you are rich, the ASA might not do anything, OK that is just speculation, but the stage is clear, and nothing seems to be happening. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, 200 million in a lifetime is nothing to be sneered and they are making that each month, I merely wonder if the deceptive advertising was essential to make that much money. 

So here we see the stage of pointless (having little or no sense) versus useless (not fulfilling or not expected to achieve the desired outcome). You might think it is the same, but it is not. The difference was seen in my Pencak Silat classes when I was a young lad (when I was 63.8% smaller roughly). Defensive systems (like Judo) are pointless, you are under attack, only countering doesn’t get the job done, there are pure attack based styles which are useless, if you are under attack, one needs defence, so the best martial art is one that decently covers attack and defence. Yes, we have seen all those movies on how great defence is, yet those grandmaster have been at it a decade or two and that tends to be far away from those starting some form of martial art. It now gives rise to the same setting with the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), they can go after Facebook all they like, yet when the advertiser moves to advertise via Bethesda games (Fallout Shelter) how useful was the jab at Facebook?

And when the advertising server moves to the USA, or perhaps Canada, or Saudi Arabia, how will that affect the verdict? It seems to me that the leading man, Guy Parker who has been chief executive of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) since June 2009; living of £120,000 a year might be able to keep up his income and fruitless actions, yet I merely wonder at present what he achieves, do you not feel the same way? When I see advertisement (the deceptive kind) move from place to place, I wonder why we need a man making well over $250,000 a year, it seems a pointless action and a useless way to spend that much money. Feel free to disagree, but there is a massive digital failure in that regard and I reckon I am not the only one thinking that. 

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October 28, 2020 · 20:35

The BS from players

When is a gamer a player? One could argue that many players are gamers, yet not all gamers are players. It is looking at a set of collections with two unknowns, yet the media to a much larger degree will not care. The BBC shows this with ‘Cyberpunk 2077 delayed until December despite developer crunch’, they also give us “A letter from the developers said there would be “many emotions and questions” about another delay, and asked fans to “please accept our humble apologies”” and here we get the first setting: ‘Why?’ My setting is given in a station where we see that their last project was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a project that was rated at 100% by some, others gave it ranging between 91%-95%, only the Nintendo Switch version did slightly worse, but the largest range was overwhelmed with the perfection of gaming offered, only GTA-V had a rating on that level. When we look at the best ratings EVER, on the PS4, it is on 13th position, on the Xbox One it is on 10th position, and on PC it got 18th position, so when CD Project Red thinks it needs more time, we should just give it to them, Witcher 3 was so lose to gaming perfection that we should accept it and when we see players like Boss Hunting giving us “Referring to what we’ve filed under “Tweets which have aged like unrefrigerated milk”, CD Projekt Red promised that Cyberpunk 2077 would face no further delays earlier this month. But delayed they have, and now, like an absentee father during the summer holidays, a promise has been broken; and everyone is sitting on the curb with their swimmers on”, so let them sit on the curb, actual gamers will accept that it will be ready when it is ready, the entire BS game of flaming whilst these same players were too often silent when it mattered. 

I will grant you that I was looking forward to playing the game, yet I would much rather wait until late January for a game that is near perfect, than a game that needs the amount of patches Ubisoft treated us to lately. I get it, most do the perfect game does not exist, not games this big, yet we can limit the issues and that is what we see now (at least I hope it is). A YouTuber MrMattyPlays gives a decently good view on the delay (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYU1lv8WqWk), but he does more, as we see the game play on the screen, the driving, the actions, the choices we get to make, we see something that is so much better than anything presently released, yet CD Project Red sees an issue and delays. MrMattyPlays mentions ‘perception’ and that is true, yet anyone having issues is off their rocker (as I see it), the only mistake MrMattyPlays makes (as I personally see it) is the fact that he compares CD Project Red to Ubisoft, CD Project Red is a relatively small player, especially compared to $2 billion Ubisoft with well over 18,000 staff members and over 14 Ubisoft locations. Not to forget the fact that they produced the worst game of 2019 (Breakpoint), I admit that it is not overly fair to have a go at Ubisoft, but we need to accept that CD Project Red at present is the creator of one of the most perfect RPG games ever (in 2015) and that achievement has over the last 5 years not been broken, will it? We will see, but that milestone give es them credibility and we better acknowledge that part in the equation, and it has nothing to do with John Wick being in the game, I’ll take him on with a pencil if need be (the John Wick fans will get this).

Is there an upside? Yup we are only 12 hours away from the official release of Watchdogs: Legion and so far it seems that they made a amazingly good product (Watchdogs: Legion), so I get more time on that (and Pikmin 3 too).

Yet the larger stage is not the makers, it is the media, always hounding for half a sound byte, half a quote, and then when the stage fumbles, play the blame game. We saw this with the non stop hounding of Hello Games and No Man’s Sky, even christian digital media were implying release date knowledge, begging like little bitches for clicks. The media is the larger problem, they want to ‘appease’ the avenues needs of gamers, but cold consideration is not on the table. And as such we get a warped expectation, yet in all this no one will hold the media to account will they? Just like the BS wave of flames around loot boxes, I am no fan of EA, even less now that I cannot buy a physical copy of NHL 21, as my favourite team is on the cover now, so I am in a ‘Fuck EA’ mode, or is that mood? Yet the setting of loot boxes is seemingly misreported, how many free loot boxes can be earned? How many packs a day are given free, how many milestones are rewarded with packs and cards? None of the media reports on this, I had a truckload with NHL 19,  I do not know how it is now, and even as several sites clearly reported on the free packs that FIFA 19 (or FIFA 20) had, I see no reporting on the FIFA 21 part, so will the gamers get an actual real view? I doubt it, it is seemingly not in their interest to cater to EA, but it seems that opposition of EA is catered to, I wonder why. It is the simplest stage of players versus gamers and as I personally see it, a lot of these players have never gamed on any decent level.

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October 27, 2020 · 16:19

Deadline or death line?

I said it before, and I stick to my view, Ubisoft is in a large stage of near death, they might be denying that part, but their setting is not good, or is that was not? Let’s be clear, today I went through Watchdogs: Legion and I am decently impressed, it is an absolute jump forward from Watchdogs 2, To be fair, this looks really good and after an hour, it still looks good and plays well. As I stated, the next two games define the future of Ubisoft and at present it seems like they got this one right. I saw issues in earlier editions, but as this was before beta, it does not count and I have every intention to take another look. No matter how we try to slice it, a few things show up, first of all, those angry (read: anti) game reviews are not as present as before, some people had plenty to bitch about Watch Dogs 2, yet I enjoyed most of the game (a few weird parts), the story was decent and the intro to WD3 is a lot better than the second one, the game has a few issues as I spotted them in WD3 that is, but it is not a disabling one, some of the conversations are really too unreal, but that could be a US view on British accents, I do not know, but it flaws there, yet two elements, the first is that this is a video game, second any voice can be regarded as flawed, it is how you look at it and does it hinder the game? I think not. One review I liked can be seen (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9kEuTyKufo). It gives a few things away, but not too much. In light of my earlier statement (regarding Ubisoft), it is important to note that this game shows a first sign that Ubisoft is addressing the stupidity we saw in earlier releases. I believe (at present) that AC Origins is still the best game that Ubisoft has released in the near past and this game is making a serious approach to breaking that achievement, something we had not seen for much too long. I might add more on the weekend as I progress through the game, yet so far I have to admit: “Well done Ubisoft”, which in light of my earlier views of other games is important to notice. 

I have nothing on AC Valhalla, What I saw earlier turned me off, yet I will admit that it was an early beta version, so lots to fix and even as some parts seem nice, there is a more apparent stage of addressing, which I believe is flawed, but it is based on incomplete views, as such I am refraining of actual criticism against the game at present.

Even as I still believe that Ubisoft is optionally on its last legs, the fact that the systems that WatchDogs: Legion is released on the big two consoles, with additions to PC and Google Stadia should not be underestimated. At present it indicates that Ubisoft could get its footing back and if the game turns out as good as it seemingly is (I honestly cannot say at present), the fact that a title like this is making it to Google Stadia as well is important. It could end up being a desired taste for EVERY Google Stadia player and that is important to Ubisoft as well. For Google it matters as it is not out on the Apple Arcade (as far as I can tell), and that will matter to Google in this upcoming race. It actually got me to one (small and insignificant) flaw at present, if I am wrong, I will be the first to apologise. When you consider that this game is in London and it was made by Ubisoft Toronto (that village in Canada), it suddenly dawned on me that the game is lacking NPC backpackers. London is filled with them, you know people with backpacks speaking in a Canadian, American and Australian accent (and plenty more dialects), they could have made that into a game achievement ‘Getting around: possessed a backpacker from every commonwealth nation’, just something to consider down the DLC road. Still, the fact that I am thinking of things to add, is important, as I am not thinking of things that required essential fixing. I might be too early in the game, but I have not felt this invigorated since AC Origins and that is a good feeling to have, Ubisoft is seemingly getting it right, if I attack them, I must also acknowledge that they are doing the right thing, it feels important to do that too.

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October 25, 2020 · 11:45

Its in the bones

There is a stage on anyones life when we realise that we do not matter, we never did, universally speaking we do not even register, on a local level we are more and more inclined to destroy that what supports us and we are already too late to stop the impact. But no matter where a person is, no matter in what stage that person is, the setting where we do not matter will always rise. And that is where we find ourselves, the House of Bones acts on what does not matter. Any meme er knows that they are finite, they do not matter, they will always be replaced and it is a strength. The House of Bones is not an open and known group, the other arcane groups know that they exist, some see one, but it is a rare event. The members of the House of Bones are not in the open, they do not have a staff, but a wand, a short stick that is like a club, it is made from a radius or a tibia, and it is alway made from a former member, there is a rule that it can be made from a family member, yet at that stage, the handle will have a phalanges of another member of that family inserted, and that family will be a living one. The wands are powered by the House of Bones, during the years of training and its ability lasts a lifetime. 

Even as the abilities of the members of the House of Bones are set on the power of death and power over the dead, they will not take a life unless they are attacked, those who attack tend to not live long enough to regret their stupidity. Any member has the ability of seeing in deep darkness, they can drain the life of others to heal themselves almost instantly. Unlike others they cannot create heat, but they can drain heat from others, they are almost expert marksman, and when they focus their bow, everything slows down. They are impervious to other magic attacks and in addition to drain health from others, they drain magic powers instantly from any arcane level attacker. 

This was the fifth house, the arcane setting has now been resolved. Yes there is more, on spells and potions, but that is not the station we need to focus on. You see, the story is everything, as such we need to focus on the main story and it can be an invasion, it can be some evil, but it must have a setting that can be overcome. That is how it works and when we have the story towards the danger, we can set the location of the Houses and the locations of villages and small cities. From there we can look into creating some level of infrastructure. People (NPC’s) need a sense of purpose, or we end up watching the painting of a fruit basket, hoping that there is actual fruit around. As I see it, at that point, the biggest fruit is the one watching the painting (the one watching to quench hunger that is).  The biggest stage is not the fact that the combinations match, they should not, you see, when you make a match, you create an algorithm to be created. Even as we want to match up larger stages, it is the 100% creation that is actually a flaw and not a clever thing. Exploring the stories is part of the joy of an RPG and the moment the player sees a formula, his or her brain will work it out and we get a ‘filling the blanks’ stage, RPG players tend to have this feeling early on, so fighting that is. much larger need than one imagines.

The second problem is that Bethesda has set the bar really high, and it is important not to look like a Bethesda copy. As such the Arcane part would need to be redesigned in a very different way. And that is merely the beginning, when I have the setting of locations and shops, we get the next degree. But that is the sideline to create the main story, the red fibre of the quests.

But more about that later, and remember, this is free public domain if it is for a Sony Exclusive game.

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October 22, 2020 · 23:10

Chimes are wind translators

The stage was not set in this day, there was another day and another week, but the origin of the order was always known, each mistress of the house kept records of what happened, and they also tend to keep record when things did not happen, or more precisely when nothing happened. The scope of all gave the exceptions power and made them more insightful. The first Mistress of the house of chimes always knew that. The House of Chimes was a little different, even as they knew that the monks of the liquid mountain had the strength from within, the house of chimes bestowed powers. The mistress did from day one. Only women were allowed in this house, it was not because there was something wrong with the men, but for some reason the power could not be handed to another man. The mistress suspected that a similar reason existed with the cave of monks. The House of Chimes had one mistress in charge, two teachers and each teacher had 4 students. As the mistress gave power to all in the beginning, they learned over time that the powers were shaped by the teachers. As the powers of each student grew stronger in the first 10 years, it would not grow stronger after that. That had always been the case, yet the powers would mature more and more as the students slept in the houses of the teachers. There was no real explanation for that. It was possible for students to learn more than one speciality, but that required the student to spend more time in the house of chimes with the second teacher. One teacher taught the student the powers of the wind, the other would teach the students the powers of the lightning, that is how it had always been. These women had a staff with at the top an empty vial. The staff was made from a combination of wood and silver, with a silver lightning symbol surrounding the vial. The women had the ability to call for wind and tornado’s. Beyond that they could summon lightning. Even was some might not have ben impressed, their abilities are set in speed. They can move fast, really fast and as the wind goes around a person, the wind informs them and highlights dangers, animals and people. Even the weakest lightning will cripple any person hit by it, or so the story goes. The women are natural healers and illusionists. The wind makes nearly everything light as a feather, and allowed them to climb near vertical walls. Their last ability is merely whispered about, it has not be seen, the women have the ability to throw voices and more important make sounds that will deafen anyone who hear it. All seemingly useless powers, but that is only to the untrained. If you cannot hear anyone, you cannot hear them approach or get away, that is if their lightning hadn’t twisted you in some bizarre way. 

It was a soft night, there was close to no wind when the student walked over the hill. She was looking around her and saw no one. The dark was comforting, ever as the night was dark, she saw near perfect, the and would warn her of dangers and that was good, not only because she hd no lust to cause harm to an animal, she was not too fond of damaging brigands either. It seemed so pointless. She got to a fork when she noticed the fog in the distance, the fog seemed so unnatural. It has a local look, no more than 200 meters in diameter it was then that she noticed the 4 shapes, they looked like brigands and she held her staff a little tighter, it was then she noticed a fifth shape in the fog, this shape was clearly a man, but he looked different, even as the brigands were red, as they always were, the fifth shape was light yellow, light as the sun. He seemed to avoid the others and struck one after another with a precision strike. She considered that this was someone from the floating house, she hd heard of them, but this was the first time that she saw one. She kept her distance and saw the entire event unfold, the brigands had no real chance. She also noticed that the brigands were not dead. Merely out for the count, and as the fog lifted she noticed the floating house member walk away. She watched him for a little while from a far safe distance, and as he went north towards the village, she walked in eastern direction. It was her first encounter with one of them, she was not about to test his feelings towards diplomacy. It was then that she noticed the hollow tree, this tree was different, she had never seen one like this before, there was a clear drop down, and there was a a corridor of sorts under the tree. She considered a few things, and the only thing pushing her was her curiosity, she contemplated the action and she hesitated for a second and jumped into the hole. 

This was the 4th house. We have one more house to add to the mixture it will be the house of bones. The story cannot merely rely on the 4 elements and in this we set the stage for necromancers to enter the fold. When we consider the House of Forests, The Floating House, Monks of the Sulphur Caves, the House of Chimes and the House of Bones, we have 5 houses. A person can only become a member of one, we set the stage of replayability. The player is not limited to the house, that person can also become an artisan or guild member. A larger stag is required and we only looked at the arcane part. My biggest issue with The Elder Scrolls is not a negative one, they had a good grasp of anything, but the stage where a person can be EVERYTHING was a little off putting. If a skilled master is merely a skilled master in one, then the stage of a larger power was close to impossible. Yes I loved Skyrim, but I had become so powerful that my Dragonbone bow was able to kill close to any dragon with a few arrows. Too much of it came across as a little bit of a steeple chase, not a challenging one. As I chewed on these elements I set a different light for playing the RPG game. If I can set the stage of a 100 hour game and make sure that these people can play the game 5 times and in different settings they would end up with a 500 hour game, a good value. So I set pout in a different direction, where the choices you make will decide where you wake up (sorry Richard). It has been done before but s fr as I know my RPG games, only once. So as we are on an island that is 200Km by 175Km, there is every chance to play the game more than once and see different settings (well I try). 

A stage that is not merely replayable, the stage where the path in a cave, a mine, or an underground fortress is different for a floating house member or a house of bones member. You can have multiple goals in any one place, but a person can only do one. It also leaves us with the stage where a person can get stuck in a place where you need one skill, but the lack of it stops you. Issues that are very real but the RPG seems to shy away from that path, there is a Montessori approach to gaming, you have to get a price, you have to win, there is always a price. It seemingly makes for weak adventurers. And I have the sage where it is different, now if we add time played (like 1 year for every 10 hours played), we get a career stage where you can become a better hero than the previous hero you played. To do this we set the stage that there needs to be  a larger story to follow and the graveyard can have merely have one type of hero, which lives you with 5 people to play (a wink to Diablo), so as such we see the larger stage, but I am merely at the start of it all, now that I know what the fifth house will be, I can consider the next stage, because in any RPG game, the story is everything. And gain this is free public domain for any Sony exclusive.

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October 20, 2020 · 23:45

Invoke the liquid mountain

The group was small, it had never been big and it was as always linked to the needs of their leader. Like in heated arguments, cooler heads prevail and none of them were ever cool, as such over the ages a hierarchy was set, the lower will blindly obey the higher, the equal were never equal, there was a separation by station and seniority. It was a system that had worked for many generations. Even as at some point merely one entered their ave, over time the stage was set to a larger preference, a setting of master, teachers and students. There were only three teachers and each teacher had three students. The students would circle around the three topics and those who became adept in a topic would serve that house, yet in the end no more than three would be allowed, in a stage where four were of the same quick disposition, the newest member got to chose one other of that house and a battle usually to the death would settle the matter. One master, three teachers and 9 students, at some point these students would become full learners and they would enter the world as evangelist to the molten mountain. The monks would mediate on their station every day and learn from within the spark given to them. Their focus would allow them to call for the liquid mountain to their side. They were masters of fire and they could at times create a small instance of the liquid mountain at their side, that allowed them to create fire wraiths if the settings were right. In their station some had the option of the liquid mountain, some could call metals from tens and some learned the ability of fire breath, yet no mater how strong they were in one discipline, they were able to learn the other two s well. Their staff was one of rock, with a stone at the end of it. They were revered by smiths anywhere on the land, their abilities could give smiths metals and some were able to reheat the forge drastically increasing the quality of metals for some time to come. The Monks were more of isolationist, they cared not for the issues of man, some took pleasure in watching the forge wielders make things, there was a connected kinship, but beyond that, the monks tended to stay clear of villages. They were also safe from animals in the wild. The heat that emanated from them was a warning, like animals clear the rod from fire, they also steered clear from monks. Monks had no harm in mind, it was an automated response. In that setting the monks became self isolating on a few levels and as such they had no regret, no worry and no stage to foresee change. 

It was for the most a happy setting for all concerned. It was on that faithful night that a monk was walking past a forest smelling something he had never smelled before. His curiosity got the better of him and soon he saw a field, the stench was almost unbearable, even for monks exposed to Sulphur fumes, this was horrendous. The field was filled with cadavers. All rotting in the night breeze, all looking contorted. He smelled something else, something that was unknown to him, it was ripe and touching, but it was unknown to him, he looked round and saw no others, and as he focused the ground in front of him turned to a pink pond, then is slowly increased in size. He focussed and a wraith came from the pond, he looked at the wraith and the wraith went to work flaming the cadavers and the field, the monk remained cautious not to let the flames get out of control, and as he succeeded, the corpses turned to charcoal, the land went black and he was content, but the setting of the cadavers was still haunting him. How could anyone merely kill all these animals? He had tried to read the signs he saw, but the signs made no sense. The animals ran from the forest, scared of something and then they stopped running, they all started dying. It was a puzzle, one that he wanted to solve, even if he cared little, such an attack on nature’s unnatural and he ever liked anything unnatural. 

He picked up his staff and as he waved his had, the wraith stopped being and the pond was cooling down. He walked on into the forest looking for new clues.

A Monk
Yes the monk is gender specific, the monk is only male, only men are allowed into the sulphur caves. They fight with fire and their fire is always lethal. Yet it takes a few seconds to get the fires going and until that happens the staff is their way and it can spout fire like a dragon. They are great smiths and their weapons last longer, are sharper and are worth more. As you gain (or have) the ability to extract metals, you have a much larger stage of striking it rich early. There is however a downside, wounds are hard to get, but s such they take longer to heal and only prolonged sleep at a lava pond will make it heal quicker.

I set the stage for another house in the story, but they are the last to be spoken of, the next house is the House of Chimes, and the monks are only male, the members of the house of chimes are always female. Yet perhaps more on that tomorrow. Well another part of public domain for Sony exclusive RPG has been made, less than 8 hours on the whole total, so I feel I am doing well.

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October 19, 2020 · 23:16

Door two of the arcane

It is time to continue the promise I made myself, and as such I want to introduce you to the floating house. The floating house is the house of a medicine man at the edge of the land, close to the oceans and close to the plains. The people graduating here have mastered the elements of water in all shapes. The people who lives in the floating house can change moist into shard of ice, sharper than any blade, they can cool the land, water the fields and turn lakes into roads. They can create fog so dense that people next to one another cannot see one another. The people from the floating house are always welcomed by those working the fields, especially in time of drought. The origins of the Floating house are unknown, the house was suddenly there and a medicine man claimed it. Over time he learned more than others ever before and the floating house become home to 7 masters and 12 students, only when two graduate two new are admitted. Sometimes one becomes a teacher, when one teacher is closing the end of its life, the call is made and those who can hear it Make way back to the Floating house and submit themselves for inspection by the head of the Floating house. This is how it has been for many many generations. 

The second door
I wandered through the fields, I felt the wheats going through my fingers, the wheat was healthy., strong and nourishing. The waters had done their job in creating a good harvest. Even as I was looking over the fields, I felt heat, intense heat. I looked round, but the glow I expect to see with this heat was missing. I saw two houses, the fields were ok, I looked again and then I saw it. The larger house was radiating heat, a lot of it. As I walked towards the house, I summoned the moist, I focussed it on the house and the rains started, faster and harder, yet the heat remained. Then the side of the house exploded. The heat was overwhelming, and the heat came without large flames. As I walked close to the open side I saw what was going on, there was a lava pond in the house, not a place where it usually came, only the Monks of the Sulphur Cave could this. Their acne knowledge was unknown to anyone but the Monks themselves. These monks were not evil, but their powers were highly destructive, so whatever had set this monk off was something that had to be dealt with, at least if this fine harvest was not to to end up being a pile of charcoal.

I looked at the pool and had an idea, I concentrated on the moist, then turned it to rain, then turned the rain solid and let it slam the roof harder and harder, within a minute the roof was gone and the pond got hammered by icy cold hail. It took a few seconds before the pool turned darker, then darker still and as the blackness of the pond was seen, the heat dissipated. I looked to the fields, they were safe, but the larger stage was not resolved. I decided to walk down the hill, there was a village there, I could feel it, I would hide in the barns and listen to what was going on, perhaps I would learn what had angered the monks, I preferred not to interfere, a monk was not clumsy or taken to whimsy. I felt happy that I saved crops, but I needed to learn what the issues were in this place.

The members of the Floating house are masters of water, as such also ice wielders, they are driven by stealth, sneakiness, covertness and clandestine actions. They believe that the limelight is counterproductive. They help and aid in secrecy, the fog is a great way to hide, nothing hides from them, but the people in the fog cannot see anything and the light fog would carry the voices of any conversation for the longest distance making eavesdropping a good way to find out what was going on. The water staff is a staff of metal with a globe on two thirds filled with water and an uncut diamond representing ice at the top. The staff was more than an arcane relic, only the members of the Floating house could hold them, the reason is actually unknown to all but a few, Not even all the graduates of the Floating house knew that part. 

Premise
Here we now see a premise of two houses, one is out to fight and to be open, the other sets the stage covertly. Like any RPG we have several sider that we want to explore and even as some games try to give students all the options to be everything, there is a larger wisdom in giving limitations. Missions can not always be done in the same way, as such we see one mission having an optional 5 narrations into the same mission. It might not always pan out that way, but the stage might be inviting to a whole range of gamers, the game they play the way they prefer to play it, and optionally a stage where they learn to play it differently.

It is a stage where we open the RPG stage to a larger population, one where we offer choice in the beginning, but after that you must work with the cards dealt. A stage that might be inviting, and is original especially when you see what it out there. Most want to be a D&D, or a Bethesda clone. I prefer to create a new road if optionally available. It is merely an idea, is it a good idea? I believe it is, is it the best idea? That remains to be seen, but like Nintendo, copying others only gives limitations, the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS became reality by ignoring what others did.

Location, Location, Location
As we are taking. Look at the people in the game, the environment also needs to be considered, in light of the volcano power needed, I set my mind on Kabaena Island in Indonesia. The island would be a 1:1 map, giving us an island that is almost 50 by 40 kilometres, as such having two dozen locations will be leave us a lot of space to evolve the game. I set that size as it was the only flaw that Oblivion ever had, things were too close together, a flaw (as I personally see it) and so did Black Flag. So I chose a sage where there is enough space, yet I wanted to avoid well known places and there is no reason why Kabaena island would not suffice, especially in light of one of the storylines I am shaping in my mind. 

So this was the second door, next is the third door that leads to the Monks of the Sulphur Caves. See ya tomorrow (hopefully), Bethesda eat your heart out! I did this part in about an hour, so less than 4 hours got you all the setting I gave over two parts (well, actually three).

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