Category Archives: Gaming

October 18, 2020 · 22:25

Playing the stage

In light of the actual brilliant move by Microsoft to buy Bethesda, Sony has a bit of a problem, or t least they had one, so I decided to set a new stage, if Bethesda is limiting their exposure to Sony, which we get from Eurogamer, who gives us “Bethesda games don’t have to launch on PlayStation for Microsoft’s $7.5bn deal to pay off, Xbox boss insists”, in addition we see in 

IGN “When I think about where people are going to be playing and the number of devices that we had, and we have xCloud and PC and Game Pass and our console base, I don’t have to go ship those games on any other platform other than the platforms that we support in order to kind of make the deal work for us,” Spencer continued. “Whatever that means.”” With the emphasis on ‘I don’t have to go ship those games on any other platform other than the platforms that we support’, I see it as a clumsy way for Microsoft to give the news that Sony is done for from a Bethesda release point of view. I reckon that they will not make a change immediately, projects were on route, but there will be delay upon delay for others. In a stage where one out of three were Microsoft fans and two out of three were Sony fans, the purchase of Bethesda by Microsoft is definitely a genius move, but the gang fans are not without options. I am hereby offering whatever I create to be used freely for any Sony exclusive game. 

Houses of Magic

Any RPG that is set in a Middle Age stage has always been depending on magic, this is how the world we created worked, which does not have to be the case, but there it is. So in that trend, I offer the five houses, however, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s start at number one.

House of Forests

This is the house where druids are created, to set a stage for druids, it implies a close knit connection to forests and fields. Yet there is more to druids, in Gaelic past they were seen as legal authorities, adjudicators, lore-keepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Instead of merely focussing on the tree and magic part, being these gives the setting where in the new game you an be an in-between between two disagreeing factions, you can advice on options to lords in castles and you also will be a healer. The lore-keeper can write magical scrolls, can wield wood into stronger bows and stronger staffs. Giving the druid the only one to create a wooden knife, a mistletoe knife. Setting the fight environment, staffs and wooden weapons are 40% stronger, the mistletoe knife 400% better, so as we look into the character, charisma is much higher, so is intelligence. A druid is a better dealer and much better healer. All healing potions are twice the strength. So this is the ability in the game, the setting of the druid requires a backstory. 

In need of a bandaid?

It started a long time go, 3500 years in facts. In a village was a young man, he was obedient and he did what he could to forward the needs of his father and their family. He was a proud man, worshipping the gods, yet he felt an unnatural pull towards Hades at times, the darkness appealed to him. Now, it is important to note that he was not evil, he felt he understood things. He was not unhappy when the old crops whitened and died. The wheat was captured, the dead leaves became straw for the cows, it made sense to him. So every year he would praise Hades ‘Thank you for taking the remaining crops, let new crops be bountiful’. He would always bring wheat and fruit as homage to Demeter, but after the harvest, after it was all done, he would also bring homage to Hades. It felt right, such as he was. As he was in the courtyard he heard a slam, like a bag of flower hitting the ground. He looked, yet he saw nothing. He walked to the edge of the farm, he looked at the waters of the Aegian, yet he saw a staff, the serpent on the staff was alive, yet the tail of the snake was part of the staff. He heard of it, yet a simple frame like him would never be shown the Staff of Aesculapius. He walked towards the staff, but kept his distance, it was then he saw the man, he walked over and helped him back to his feet. Greetings young man, I am Therapeutae of Asclepius, I tend to the need of the gods. I upset one of them and here I am. The young man offered his arm and it was at that moment when the snake was close enough and bit his leg. The man was scared for one second, then he looked around and set on the low wall surrounding the courtyard. He looked at the land, and softly whispered ‘Hades, I am done for, a snake got me’, Therapeutae looked at him and smiled. You are in a fortunate side young man, this was not intended, but it happened. The venom of the snake makes you an immortal. It is clear that you are a good man, I am back on my feet. The staff flew back into his hands. He shimmered and faded into nothingness. It was today, the man was thinking back to the day where his mortality had diminished, it had been almost 25,000 moons, yet he remembered it like it was yesterday. As he looked into the distance he saw the tavern and the corrupt bailiff and his cronies. He walked towards them, and as it was set, he was quite angry. The two cronies did not see him coming, they were taking to their boss, he hit them both with one swing, he then hit the boss, but did not hit him squarely enough. The Bailiff got up and drew his word. The druid spoke ‘That does not work on me’ and as he stood still, the Bailiff struck, the sword swiped from left to right and the Druid was struck. Then something happened that had never happened before, he felt the spilling of blood, and he looked down. The wound was closing and he focussed again on the Bailiff. He slapped him from left to right to left again and one over the skull for good measure. He looked down, he was whole again, and apart from the small scar, there was no evidence that he had ever been wounded. But what happened to his powers?

So that was the first start of an origin story and the setting of one class, I will try to set out another class perhaps the Floating house, this took me a mere hour, so I might have something more tomorrow. I have nothing against Bethesda, but they deserted Sony and their population, I need to make Microsoft understand how expensive a bill of $7.5 billion is when it misses it objective as Sony will have a somewhat delayed answer to Bethesda Elder Scrolls, and perhaps I will continue to set something to counter Fallout as well, which is a little harder, I know. Will it work? I do not know, but there is a stage where Bethesda will face not only the loss of Sony clients (which is huge), but Sony will get you an alternative, as such Bethesda will end up gaining a contender.

Perhaps Microsoft will learn, perhaps not, Whatever they decide on, it is a lesson that came with a $7,500,000,000 tag, lets see if we can teach them a little more, they seemingly part with money easily enough.

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October 13, 2020 · 21:47

One matter is not another

Yup it is that flaky, it all started with two events, I saw the first event, but I basically ignored it, it was more of old news and politicians getting in on the tailcoats of another is a setting we have seen too often. Then there was the other new news, the was based on the old, and I will start with that, it makes more sense that way.

I got the news (and I had seen it) Pikmin 3 is coming to the Nintendo Switch. I knew it but I had not made up my mind yet. A budget implies that I cannot go out and buy whatever tinker trait is out there. I am not in the worst setting, but blatantly buying a game is jut not on. What made it interesting is the Nintendo added a demo to their shop, so I went out and played the demo (twice) and I recaptured the feeling that the first Pikmin on Nintendo Gamecube left me, the endearing feeling of using the Pikmin and keeping them safe, it is a weird setting, the feeling that came to me almost 19 years ago (18 years and 49 weeks to be a little more precise). The game was a true original and never disappointed, a full blown homerun for Nintendo. I am not exaggerating when I say that Shigeru Miyamoto outdid himself with that one. There are times when we rejoice when something is knocking on our door and we see it is something we have seen before, this is quite the opposite to the first matter and is when we see ‘Australians sign Kevin Rudd’s call for inquiry into Murdoch influence’, you see, he is now in full show with a goatee, perhaps so that he looks as endearing as Rolf Harris once did. Oh, no, it is more of an actual beard, my bad.

Yes Kevin Rudd is calling for an investigation into Murdoch industries, something he never achieved when he was Prime Minister, did he? When we look back there was the Leveson inquiry that focussed on the UK and gave us a series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. It resulted in the Leveson Report in November 2012. I remember it because I have it, all 2200 pages. In April 2012 we were given ‘Rupert Murdoch gives away more than planned at Leveson inquiry’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/apr/25/rupert-murdoch-planned-leveson-inquiry), so whilst Kevvie was Prime Minister, what did he call for? Nope, he left that apparently to get back into politics, now it is ‘‘A cancer’: Kevin Rudd calls for royal commission into ‘Murdoch monopoly’’, so that took him 8 years to figure out? If it takes that long, he has no business been in politics in the first place. But I agree slapping around an 89 year old multibillionaire might optionally be entertaining, yet in this I find the sanctimonious actions of a former Prime Minister who did nothing when he was in office a bit much. And I am not alone here. When we see ‘Rudd has become Murdoch’s accuser, but once he was his cheerleader’, with the added “Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, Murdoch took over the Herald and Weekly Times publishing company, which gave him control of newspapers accounting for about two-thirds of daily circulation”, so not only does Rupert Murdoch have the power he has now, but it was the Labor party the enabled it, can sarcasm be any prettier?  As such, when we get to “The Herald reported that “cabinet colleagues were appalled at Rudd’s flagrant courting of News’ favour”” we see the mess he made of it, and now he wants to get back into politics by opposing he former friends? Well, that is politics I reckon. And the result? Well, I have to agree with “But what could a royal commission achieve? It is impossible to see any legislation improving the situation. Journalists often justify their efforts to bring transparency as being in the public interest with the words of American Justice Louis Brandeis that sunlight is the best disinfectant” (source: Sydney Morning Herald), the Leveson inquiry showed us how useless this path is, the media will cry like prissy little bitches all claiming that they can do better and continue in the same way they did. We merely need to look at the headlines on MH-370 we were given in 2014, basically the ink of the Leveson report had not even dried at the point. Politics and media, it is a stage where one hand feeds the other, whilst the left and remains ignorant of the actions of the right hand, a stage that will not improve until the laws get adjusted FIRST, a stage that is never ever going to happen. So whatever Kevin Rudd has planned, voting for whomever is the other person remains the safer bet. He did this to himself, a sage that is fraught with danger, yet like the Pikmin, they are the consumers getting the idea of what is safe, but in this case it is not Captain Olimar guiding the consumers (Pikmin players will get this), it is Corporal KRudd the we must trust and he will guide the red Pikmins through the shallows and uses the Yellow ones for the Bulbears, in this I fear for the lives of consumers (sorry, I meant Pikmin), I am slightly surprised that he got 100,000 foolish enough to sign his so called ‘intent’ all whilst there is absolutely zero chance that is ends up amounting to anything at all.

I agree, that one matter is not the other, but both are pages we have seen before one leaves us happy and relaxed, the other does not, for those wondering, the political side is not the fuzzy one.

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October 12, 2020 · 20:43

When we reconsider

We reconsider at times, we all do. It is not merely a stage of changing of minds, it is a stage of giving a game another chance. In my case it is F1 2020. The last one I had was F1 2000, a game that I got with my PS2, I am not much of a racing fan, but I enjoyed the game to some extent. The ‘some extent’ is not to be mistaken with some critical view of the game. I do not have one, I like racing to some degree, I am not a lover of it. It’s a simple stage. Another game I had was Project Gotham 3, it came with my Xbox 360. That game I loved, it was fun, the F1 game is less fun, more of a simulator, till it is a nice challenge to have and at times we reconsider getting the game, so after 15 years I am willing to get another F1 game. Some go with statement like ‘cleansing the palette’, some go with ‘something else to devour’, some people (like me) never thought negative of the game, merely saw it as something that was not their cup of tea. Yet we all get to a stage that we want to try tea again. It is partially natural. For me, in part it was the stage where F1 2000 was actually a good looking game, I merely was decently lousy in racing. And the F1 game was a decent simulator. That in position to the fact that Project Gotham Racing III was more fun, slightly less of a simulator. Yet this is not about the F1 game, it is about FIFA. The BBC introduced me to ‘FIFA 21 review: ‘The virtual, beautiful game is passing off old as new’’, as well as the Verge giving us ‘FIFA 21 Is Limping Toward Retirement’. Now we should all accept that it is one hell of a test to prolong a franchise, even as soccer is one of the most favourite sports in the world, renewing it for 20+ years is still a massive task. Now, we can all go Monday morning quarterback on the makers, but in the end, I wonder if anyone could have done the job the way EA did. Now, I am not blowing their horn, they have a marketing department for that. In addition, I support their view that loot-boxes is not gambling. I have always supported that side, even as they clearly have made a few mistakes, the fact that they were made is open to debate. And even add the UK gives us “The Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport (“DCMS”) has launched a call for evidence on the impact of loot boxes in video games to help it determine whether they should be classified as gambling products” I still have a personal nagging that this is is a rigged setting. 

Even as we see things evolve, we see a larger stage the is not explored, which is partially an option for discussion. Yet the stage is still in the open. Like the F1 game I looked at, others look at FIFA in a similar way, I am not a FIFA fan, I am an NHL fan and the disturbing part is the here in Australia, the game still cannot get ordered, which is an optional EA play push and a Xbox Billing wish. 

I get the stage that this is, not many Australians have a preference to Hockey. I played it when I was younger. Hence, my interest (and my delusional dream that San Jose, Ottawa, Edmonton, or Calgary calls me that they are in desperate need of a goalie and my name came up), who has not had that thought? Which soccer player does not want to be able to bend it like Beckham? There is a weird interaction with sports games, especially the one we really prefer. We go for the annual setting, but there too EA dropped the ball more than once. It is their right to drop it, but it seemingly gets them in the situation they are in now.

And the stage of sport games is larger than we consider NHL21, FIFA21, Madden NFL 21, EA UFC 2020, Rugby20 2020, F1 2020, NBA 2K21, PGA 2K21, a stage that is a lot bigger than we realise and even if we are not a great fan of some games, EA and others had the option to change the stage and get a much greater following, but they set the game to an event of capture the dough. We can all be or become Monday morning quarterbacks, yet what will this resolve?

We are in what I call a clear stage to reconsider, the gamers and the makers. This is not about sport games, yet this is the larger stage of gaming and to set the what is new, and the why renews. A stage the gaming seems to overlook again and again, As I personally see it it comes with the marketing field who increasingly limits the scope ‘How to acquire new money and how to get as much of it as we can’, it is a natural setting for marketing and that makes sense. But if gaming leads, it is time to set a very different stage. Even as some as in the setting of ‘What if that does not work?’ Nintendo faced that with the WiiU, yet that led to the Nintendo Switch, a system that broke all their records and pushed the Microsoft console from 2nd to 3rd position and as Switch is in 2nd position, still growing its markets, still growing after 3.5 Years. 

It is time to reconsider the plays that are currently being made.

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October 9, 2020 · 17:46

Warrior Women Librarians

Yup, it is about the Amazon tribe, the one that is managed by no one less than Jeff Bezos. They caught my eyes twice today (well once was at 01:34 roughly), so I decided to take another look. First the second story, it was an opinion piece in the New York Times called ‘Don’t Let Amazon Get Any Bigger’. The article (at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/opinion/amazon-antitrust.html) gives us “the evidence presented this week in a long report by the House Judiciary Committee, following a bipartisan investigation of the tech giants, tells a very different story. Amazon’s website forms a choke point through which other companies must pass to reach the market. It has exploited this commanding position to strong-arm other companies, control their means of distribution and drive them out of business”, I am on the fence here. In the first no one was interested in Amazon, now that they have traction everyone is crying foul. It’s like watching gangs cry like little bitches because they aren’t getting scraps, all whilst they forgot that in a library a 9mm is not of much use, a book on the Dewey Decimal Classification is. If I have a firm, I do not give wannabe’s access to my IP, if they do not have their own, they miss out, it is that simple, no matter what size I have. And for the longest time, we see certain firms getting called out, all whilst the grandfathers of this approach (Microsoft and IBM) are given leeways and passes on a non-stop foundation, or perhaps the whinging members of the House Judiciary Committee would like to have a deep conversation in the IBM dealing with NATO, its members and their system 36 (or was that their system 38) approach on ‘distribution’ in 1978-1980, I feel certain that former members of the Digital Equipment Corporation, as well as those of Hewlett Packard would like their day in Congress asking direct questions on certain non-outspoken choices. 

A small sidestep that has little (not nothing) bearing on Amazon. Amazon has grown, it has grown dramatically, but it was founded on the stage of an online bookshop. A dream the became a behemoth and Jeff Bezos does have some reason of pride. To be honest, I am not much of an Amazon fan, I have nothing against them and I see that there are places that benefit greatly of their presence, yet just like I prefer my local hooker, I am determined to support my local bookshop and local retail outlets, that is how I roll. It is the first article that I saved for last that has the larger frame of becoming an issue.

It is not the article I initially saw, yet ‘Yes, Amazon Luna dodges Apple’s cloud gaming rules — when will Nvidia and Google?’ (At https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/25/21455343/amazon-luna-apple-app-store-rules-cloud-gaming-streaming-google-nvidia) that is the larger issue. You see, it is not bout being naughty or about going rule dodging. It is seen in “Amazon Luna on iOS is not a traditional app. It’ll never appear in the App Store, and it doesn’t need to”, did you catch on yet? No? OK, let add “it’s a progressive web app (PWA), which is mostly a fancy name for a website that you can launch and run separately from the rest of your web browser. Engadget says it can even appear as an icon on your home screen, making it look like a normal app before you tap it”, I get it if you are still in the dark, so let continue the tory, The verge also had something I did not know before, they give us “Streaming games are permitted so long as they adhere to all guidelines — for example, each game update must be submitted for review, developers must provide appropriate metadata for search, games must use in-app purchase to unlock features or functionality, etc. Of course, there is always the open Internet and web browser apps to reach all users outside of the App Store”, so even as the Verge is wondering when Google and Microsoft will catch on, the larger danger remains. 

This for organised crime is a dream come true, and anyone denying or countering it is a blatant fool. A system the can reside in RAM and sets a stage of multiple systems is the holy grail. For the most as it was all system based, there was no real issue, if things did get wrong, one player is held accountable and it tends to end there, now there is a new stage where one system could open a gateway to basically rob you. Now, you are unlikely to lose a lot $1 at the most, so you might not wake up, but when this happens to well over a million players the amount tends to add up and organised crime (as well as entrepreneurial criminals) love that part, becoming wealthy as they sleep and when the system resets, the evidence is gone. No indications of long doing and the justice systems tend to not engage when the stolen amount is less than $5, so there is that, the interested parties could double their income overnight. But in the long term a person could lose $12-$50 over a year and they might not care or even realise this, but when this is done to 20-50 million people it all ends up being a serious amount of money.

A stage where we all watch things happen all whilst nothing will be done, the ego driven will Tate that it is under investigation, and deny wrongdoings, the secondary stage where some careful phrased denial in the some shape that gives us “We have seen no wrong by we are adding safeties just in case” and the jurisprudential parts that give us, it seemingly is a small crime and involved events of less than $5 the we do not investigate and the clever entrepreneur will walk away with millions upon millions of dollars, the is the stage and greed driven technologists thought they were allegedly clever by allowing a stage where a speculated stage of mis acquisition was an optional reality.

A stage the is increasingly dangerous because it is not merely Google, it I a sage where Epic Games, as well as any other set the stage of avoiding fees from whatever source they owe it to, only to set a much more dangerous stage, one the the cyber crime finals love and one the will all cost us, seemingly not a lot, but enough to make others wealthy beyond their dreams.

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October 9, 2020 · 05:04

As crazy ideas go part 2

Yup, there is a part 2 to this, my mind would not stop considering and as I am not getting any sleep (it is now 4:14) I decided to give up and give in to creativity. I tried to wear myself out by playing a game on my mobile, but the idle games become tedious at best, they are clever but there is one original and the firm makes several copies, one involving dope, one involving western times, one involving swamps and one involving mining and from there we go on, play one play them all. So I went out of my way to consider what I like. There is Merchant, which is a lot more fun that I reckon it is, and I have supported (through purchases) of the Book of heroes on two systems. There are a few others and one that must be mentioned is Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, which is still utterly gold. I played it on 4 systems so far. And that got me thinking, there was a Westworld game, I never saw it, but it was based on Fallout Shelter. So what if we unite the worlds of Fallout Shelter and Dungeon Keeper? The Dungeon Keeper out there now is an exploitative joke. Yet the combined form might be different. Consider (those who can) the two games. Heroes enter the cave (the fallout entrance) and they need to get to the heart. The heart (at the far right) is always linked at the end of the first level, and on level 1 there are 4 rooms, now consider that you can go down, but the lower level is no use until you move the dungeon heart. In addition to the imps building new levels and additional rooms, we need to move the heart, so there is a larger concern to be strategical about the growth. And as every room and combinations of rooms invite certain troops, you want to be clear on how you go about it. The troll is no longer a trap-maker, but his presence doubles the speed of the imps, and as we take a look of rooms, we see thinned to make choices and to change rooms. The library gets us the warlock, but a library next to a prison gets you a sorcerer (more powerful), a prison gets you skeletons, yet a prison next to a graveyard will result in vampires. By setting the rooms next to one another and by combining the size of rooms, we create a larger stage of fiends to aid us with the hordes of heroes the will come for the heart. A training room will set the stage for stronger fighters, just like in the game, yet a training room next to another could infill the presence of another kind of character and the implies that the setting of replaying will be overwhelmingly more interesting. Especially when we consider that not only our troops could go to level 50, but so does the opposition. We could also set limits, like the game, a temple will invite up to 2 Dark Angels, but only if the temple is next to the Dungeon heart and the dark angels NEVER leave the temple, so their training will only come from heroes travelling through them. As such you can set more limitations and in that stage we get a new game, an optional essential as the dark angels were WAY too strong. Even though it is in part based on Fallout Shelter, Dungeon Keeper is an established game that has been around a long time and as the game changes increasingly, there would not be an IP violation, Dungeon keeper merely went from top view to side view and Fallout shelter does not have inter-depending rooms. So there, a new mobile game thought through in less than 2 hours, not a bad result I reckon. 

Of course, if anyone else then EA actually creates that game, they will face a few charges of ownership (EA bought Bullfrog), but the stage could be altered and if it is different enough, it might be made. Oh for those making games, let the gamer switch off the bloody music for your game and do not force them to listen to it through the entire tutorial, some do not care how nice it sounds, we merely want to play the game, not listen to the bombastic fanfare of ego.

And that is merely the beginning, when we consider the old games and the new games (Impossible Mission / Covert Action), in this, we see a stage of partial ‘action’ and a game of tactics, so what happens when Impossible mission is much more tactical? As the altered phrase goes ‘You won’t stay a while, you’ll be there forever’ and if the gamer likes the challenge, why not?

All this within an hour (4:59 now), my job is done, time to see if my sawmill can start (the snore capacitor). Time to prepare for the weekend (after some Zzzzzzzzzzzzz).

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October 8, 2020 · 22:51

As crazy ideas go

OK, lets be clear, Ubisoft is not suddenly a good place (not judging on the massive amounts of pushed events), yet they have the advantage through Watchdogs 2. So what happens if the map is increased, what if it is close to identical to the real deal? Now we are going to add things, not some almanac we have to chase, but events we have to fix.

Consider San Francisco, now add episodes of Charmed, the Streets of San Francisco, Full House, Monk, The Circle, Blue Jasmine, the Rock, Bullet, Pursuit of Happiness, the Presidio, so many movies and TV series that were made and based in San Francisco, what if you have to fix it all, fix productions, get the rights scripts to the right people. Props to the right locations, Hunt for people out to get the actors (wink at the Dead pool) and so on. It has never been done before and what is more, it is a game that is expandable, that is the nice part of San Francisco. OK, Ubisoft has one hell of a legal predicament to work on, but it would be original, and it could be an eye opener for the nextgen systems. In all this, a stage to look forward to, and let not forget, the overwhelming group  of gamers, they do love their movies. So whilst I am brooding over the next part of my short story, this idea came into my head. 

So you start s a young executive (a real Joe does it all), has to get the actors to the set, has to get the props, has to place the crew and scripts. Yet the stage is not as straightforward. There are things he can delegate, and things he cannot delegate. For example, the diamond prop in the jewel store heist (one of the TV series) are also needed on the set of the Presidio, so you are racing from place to place, getting the right stuff and delegating the right tasks. And as we go from level to level, more stages, more scripts and more challenges. All this whilst you need to build up credibility, revenue and stage bigger margins. As the game goes forward there is the need for more of everything and over time as we add more and more series and movies, the unlocks increase. It was only a first thought, but something like this has not been done before and it is not easy, some studios are very protective of their IP, so the game is not an easy fit, but it could be a nice challenge. I wonder who at Ubisoft had looked at that, with the larger need for exclusive gaming, Ubisoft has its challenges ahead of itself.

Anyway, it is more appealing than the hundreds of messages about a fly on the presidential debates. And whilst the world watched the, I had a first inkling of a new idea, I feel that I am on a roll. Yup, I have earned my mac and cheese tonight. 

In light of all the remasters and re-releases (which is still a good thing), I came up with an optional new game. I am still thinking o it and also trying to convince myself to create more new gaming IP, you see so much has already been done, coming up with a brand new IP is a much larger challenge than one thinks. I had the idea of a time thief, but the stage is much too large. The idea came to me when Assassins Creed gave us the original bonfire of the vanities DLC. The person was real, there was a Girolamo Savonarola, he did start ‘ethic cleansing of art’ by having his own kristalnacht, so what happens when you go to the night, copy the artwork and steal to original without being seen. As such what can be done before 7 February 1497, what can only be done on the night, with art treasures the in today’s world would exceed a billion dollars. Hundreds of pieces of art. So how far would you get? Being spotted ends the game, and makes you restart it, or you can retire, but only the successful retire rich. And it is not the only time this happened.

The obvious moment is WW2, yet it was not the only case, WW1 has had its share of events, there is the 17th century fire that destroyed much of Brussels, 1654, a gunpowder magazine stored in a former convent exploded in the Dutch town of Delft (I lived there, which is why I know), destroying the works of Carel Fabritius. An optional art education on top of all this. The 1734 fire of Seville’s royal palace, destroyed hundreds of pieces of art, including works by Diego Velázquez, Leonardo d Vinci, Anthony van Dyck, El Greco, and Raphael. And there are several of these events. So what happens when we realise the tie theft is very very expensive (power for time travel and so on), so one can only progress if enough is ‘saved’. Two ideas in one day, not a bad call, is it? And if you wonder why all the big houses cannot one up with original idea’s, I will shrug my shoulders. I got this done with a gatorade and the need for Mac and cheese in my belly. All this before 11PM, sometimes I even scare myself. So whilst there is a Star Wars movie in the background, I wonder if anyone has considered a slightly more arcade version of Knights of the Sky, and in light of Star Wars Squadrons, did anyone consider a viper simulator for the Battlestar Galactica. It is merely an idea, but the series has plenty of fans, and shooting down Cylons? Not the worst way to spend time (sorry Grace Park). We see the easy marks, yet how many had considered Time theft? We can go 1st person (thief), take a Commando 2 approach guide several characters, use a third person approach (Dead Space), all whilst we consider the choices here, I am considering another game. Oh well, there is no stopping the creative mind.

Have a great weekend (Friday is prep-day for weekend).

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October 5, 2020 · 00:51

The accusation and more

Yup, we all get accused, the of course includes me. In this case it is about ‘The mind stage’ which I wrote 22 hours ago. Apart from some of the deleted hatred stuff, there were some accusation that I was exaggerating about Ubisoft. As such here is the rundown. 

In the last 24 hours we see ‘Survey Finds That 20% Of Ubisoft Employees Do Not Feel Respected Or Safe In The Workplace’, and there are 3 more, then we get a few review based links with titles like ‘Hyper Scape has not met Ubisoft’s expectations’. This last headline I have no issues with, the article is clear and focussed on the game. That is part of life, the others is about perpetuating a stage well over a month old, and I get it, Ubisoft is newsworthy, but these articles are about getting clicks, as such the story is adjusted (like the survey) and there is no real stage on how long this continues. I get it, we seek what we are interested in, yet the imbalance that comes with this is also skewing the view of the people.

This matters, mainly because it comes with dangers. I have seen this before, but this time around I found FMI (Future Market Insights) divine us ‘Top 3 Cognitive Biases That Can Skew Market Research Outcomes’ (at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/blogs/details/skew-market-research-outcomes). The stage is set to 

  • Irrational Escalation
  • Social Desirability Bias
  • Knowledge Bias

You think that this is something that balances itself, but that is not the case, it sort of relates to the sight you cannot be set to unseen. This is easily set to another stage, almost a decade ago there was a video that was called 2 girls one cup, now I was fortunate to avoid it, but anyone who has ever seen it will forever be cursed with the ability to recall it. It is something the mind cannot set to unseen and it optionally haunts you forever, even if you are able to forget, the moment it is mentioned it comes back (in technicolor plus)

So when we get to irrational escalation, sometimes it is referred to as cognitive bias or preconceived notions, it will influence you, as such overly negative views will filter you to be negative from the start (a political, or adversarial tactic). The further away it is, the easier it is to remain negative about it, because daily events will not change or adjust it to a more balanced view. In this the mind loves any form of balancing. Some sales techniques are based on this, especially if the sales track is more than instant sales (like cars, houses and larger investments), the balanced mind accepts more options especially as it can reweighs the positive and the negative to its own setting. It is not always logical, but it works, some people have an entire stage set up for this approach and they are doing a lot better than most. 

In the stage of Social Desirability Bias, we actually continue from the previous setting, the balanced mind. It becomes about projection in the conversation, often the view is set to a relationship of something the person is ready to accept, in Ubisoft case it becomes “remember how much fun we had in Origin/Brotherhood, but now you are a Viking”. It is also a view of adjustment where the positive gets a lot more time than the negative. It is also the first page where data gets skewed, whether the data is collected or instantly available, the skewing is set to a plus point, the more positive one is not on how it is shown, but how the recipient of the information gets a skewed perspective reflective towards their own feelings on the subject. This is mostly seen in market research and how it is brought (the story maker) into a presentation that is given to share holders and stake holders of the setting, yet that same approach works on everyone that the story is trying to reach. Then there is knowledge bias, it is more generic but cannot be ignored. As such we see the station of gaming, we see the bias of positivity is used to inflate the positive and the negative part does the opposite, branding tends to be the power. An example is ‘As you see this, we see the resolution, yet the Nintendo Switch can not show us this, we could argue the the other cannot do this either, we have after all the mot powerful processor in our system’, in this we see a stage where we are given (slammed with) the term teraflop as such we now see the application of both knowledge bias as well as cognitive bias, yet what we forget is that the processor is merely one element in the setting, for people who know sound equipment, it reflects as ‘buy the most expensive amplifier, it solves everything’, yet if the speakers are ignored, the sound remains awful. The same for the processor, the environment around it will be equally important. And here is the kicker, most gamers merely look at the power of the processor, thinking the this solves it all, but like looking at any console, it is not the hardware, the games are the station of testing and the is where some come out better than others. This is a setting where Ubisoft failed, the idea was accepted and then it was given to marketing and the idea was drowned (or smothered) whilst not setting the stage correctly. I had stated a few times that testing was insufficient (or the issues could not be fixed) this ended up being seen in too many games. 

It is not just a Ubisoft issue, EA was equally stupid, relying on Knowledge Bias of the first three games and then dropping Mass Effect Andromeda on the same population, the effect is that a brand is now dealing with a massive effect of negativity (pun intended). They need to clean house and they need to do this fast (one more than the other), yet the stage is evolving and not for the good, the three markers have been used too long and too often, there is a larger bias running now, it is set to the lack of credibility and soon that will end up being the marker we see advertised and propagated. Here I need to make a jump. In 2015 Liang’an Huo (et al) gave us 

‘Optimal control of a rumour propagation model with latent period in emergency event’ this is important as we see here “Because network information has always suffered from a lack of credibility, people cannot believe it immediately but are able to believe news from their friends and relatives more easily. Especially, rumours mostly come from a network and then spread in real life mouth to mouth. Many rumours come from a network and are hidden in the depths of one’s heart for a period of time before he/she becomes a spreader or stifler in real life”, yet as I see it, it is not limited to information networks, there is a credible case that we can alter this into “because aided and given information has since the digital age suffered from a lack of credibility”, we see the stage where one ‘network’ one’s ‘connections’ are now a much larger stage of subjective perception (subjective bias as well as cognitive bias), and this is where the wheels come off the train and they then call it a hovercraft with needless rails. Yet when we consider “By means of the Lyapunov function and LaSalle’s invariant set theorem, we proved the global asymptotical stable results of the rumor-free equilibrium and the rumor-endemic equilibrium by using the Poincarè-Bendixson property” the paper now gives us “an optimal control problem is formulated, from the perspective of a manager in emergency events”, which applies to emergency events, yet in the mind of the buyer, a console is an emergency event (even if they ignore it), they are dealing with peer pressure and the fear of buying the bad product is optionally killing them inside. In the past we had VHS versus VCC (some might remember that) and marketing set us to the weaker product because that is where the need was, a fluctuated ‘peer pressure’ part and that is now reflective in the news we are given, they are adhering to share holders, stakeholders and advertisers, yet the people are weary. And that stage is getting flooded on a few stages where the marketeers are remaining in the ‘more is better’, yet the imbalance is now hitting people to a much larger degree and they are rejecting all information as their cognitive bias is set to minus 100. So now we see the application of market research in the field. If we consider business strategy as a solution to consoles and software, the stage changes when we consider “an organised effort to gather information about target markets and its customers; know as much as possible about them and identifying who they are”, yet the three bias flags and the flooding of less and less accepted information makes all that harder and the stories linked to them are adjusted, but are they correctly adjusted? The market knows less and less yet they proclaim that they do. As such we reflect on the Ubisoft stage, insider how accepting a vast amount of gamers are towards the marketed hype creation (a flaw Microsoft has as well), and as knowledge bias is shifted (through the teraflop stories) and cognitive bias is limited as people are less trustworthy of handed information as such they now more and more rely on their own ambassador of a product (the gamer next door), optionally the mechanic they know from school when they are considering a car, the stage changes and we see new reflective bias and the partial title of that paper ‘Optimal control of a rumor propagation model’ now comes into focus. It is seen in the conclusion where I state (an altered version) “Rumour propagation can have serious consequences; thus the study on how to take effective measures to control its spreading through filtering is of great practical significance”, I added ‘through filtering’, the setting is that we need to be able to filter through deletion of bias and controls spreading by stopping propagation of those affecting knowledge bias and cognitive bias. You think it is easy, but it is not, it will optionally become a new set of markers that will impact web surfing under 5G. Ubisoft brings it to the surface as it was the most pronounced there, but there are dozens of other sources in a similar predicament. It will stage a new form of marketing the needs to set the stage of weighted and unweighted data and the effects of boas filters, it will end up being a new form of filtering.

It is perhaps the only moment where I feel that the paper is missing something (it was not on them), It is seem when we see ‘General rumour propagation model with latent period and having constant immigration’, it is my personal view the there is a need to see ‘General rumour propagation model with adjusted weighting due to pushed trending external adjustments’

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September 30, 2020 · 14:56

Another furlong (to the race)

Yup, I stated and I keep (my word for the most), and as my mind wonders towards the new RPG, I need to set in motions the cogs, not the ones in my mind, but any game has cogs, the more it is set to a system, the more natural it comes across. As the player fathoms how things are set, they will also set in motion certain expectations towards continuances of the game.

So here we see the first cog, if you remember yesterday, I spoke about the fur guild, but it is merely one of three (in the initial design. It does not matter if you consider that part the green or the red cog, so the house of worship would be the other colour. When we look into the combinations we get a larger setting, a sort of interaction. The fur guild, the clothing guild, and the  smithing guild are three parts of the cog, and the cog could evolve further. What I call the house of worship would have evolved from the scribes, it gave us the coin-masters (banks and accountants), scribes (recorders and historians), evokers and casters. This makes sense when we recall the actual meaning of evocation (the act of bringing or recalling a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious mind), and as the stage grows, so do the cogs, starting with no more than 5 (three is better) gives you the setting towards a stage where the story can grow. Three is better because you can see how the cogs are maximised, before you add n-teeth to any cog. The interaction becomes important, as a person might become more than merely a trainee of furs. Someone who sets furs and has coin-master skills would be more effective in running a shop and making the more successful. And this stage also impact the coin-master on all guild trades. Scribes would be more effective in creating effective armour, because of historic learnings and evokers might add additional protection on any armour or weapon, now here is the kicker, by not merely adding them, but by limiting the amount of teeth of any cog you can inhabit, makes the game very replayable. It sets a stage where person can be close to very different in each gameplay, giving a larger joy to the game, in all this, when we make sure that the game also evolves different we get a larger bang for the buck and that is where Oblivion failed, you could do it all (which is not wrong), but when you get to do it all, you get through the game a lot faster and in all this the challenge dissipates. It was a flaw they largely avoided in Fallout 3: New Vegas, as the good person could not do all the missions, the bad person got to have a life in the ‘freed’ prison, it might seem small, but the larger implications could be seen over time.

So as we see the cog on two elements, it becomes a larger stage when the cogs interact with optional abilities down the road, for example the druid path cannot be gotten as you slay animals for furs, the arboreal might do so, as such we see that the hunter (bow) gets side, the druid another side, the smith might become the wielder of mauls, it is that difference that sets you apart. Even as the smith can wield the bow, the skills there will go slower than the maul would. In RPG exploring your options is half the fun (at least for me it is), I remember that in Neverwinter Nights (the original) the Scythe had benefits, we lost out on this view in several RPG games and it is time to consider a larger stage where you might get 100 hours of fun as one character, but an additional 80 hours as a second character. Th stage where missions are depending on the class you end up being and setting it to such a way that you are not aware of what you are missing out in the first play through, is what will amaze you the second time around. 

Oh and this came forth (from my devious brain) in less then 5 hours (all added up), so when we see the claims that it is so hard to create on, there is truth there, but it also depends on the visionaries they hire, that is the lesson I hope to instil on Microsoft as I offer these ideas to Sony.

By the way, when you consider the guild structures, and we add water options, agrarian options and we interact on three levels, how many times could you replay a game (apart from the locations) before the game bores you? Consider that some still play Skyrim which was released on 11.11.11, so when the nextgen consoles are released, the game will be 9 years old. That is a record worthy of slaying, so we need to come to the party with a massive (optionally spiked) bat.

Have fun considering what else the future of gaming has to offer.

 

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September 30, 2020 · 01:46

The race is on

It is like any race, it is not set to a state where we all set the marker, some set the marker and then changed the game, I admit, that we cannot blame them for becoming multibillionaire overnight, but it sets the race to a much larger degree now.

As GamesRadar gave us less than a day ago ‘Bethesda founder on Microsoft purchase: “What Microsoft owns, Sony cannot get”’ we see “If the strategy works, it will be a brilliant counter-move against Sony. Users from around the world will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this deal”, this is where Christopher Weaver is extremely wrong. There is a reason why I threw away my Microsoft console. Consider the I had both, the (what I personally call) betrayal by Microsoft towards its gamers, is a stage I cannot abide by, so as I set part of it in script a year ago in ‘An Intellectual Property example, Part 2’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/09/09/an-intellectual-property-example-part-2/) it is time to come to the aid of Sony, there is something about Microsoft buying its way to the top that I resent and they are doing it for very different reasons, not because they love gamers. Consider the amount involved, they want something else and Microsoft is not to be trusted. 

So the need to find or create a new RPG exclusive to Sony gamers, to upset the Microsoft act, shows that not only were they (partially) stupid, the fact that they do not hold the exclusive stage of RPG, Bethesda never did, but the act to force people into a path might seem brilliant, yet only if there is no alternative and there is. So there is now a need to attack both Fallout and the Elder Scrolls. Even if I am not their enemy, their new owner must be taught a lesson, ignoring gamers in the gaming industry is the most stupid thing one could ever do.

Fantasy

The game starts in a small city, we see a man at a well, he is merely looking around, wondering where he is. We get our first flashback. He is a young man walking out of a London Fish And Chips shop, he has a few coins left and drops them in a hat, stating ‘me last money, you’re welcome to it’, the man looks at him smiling drunk ‘bless you young man, bless you indeed’, the boy walks on, not seeing the mark on the mans hand was he waves at the boy, making him stumble into a wall and vanish. This same young man looks around, wearing a cheap jute outfit, no shoes he looks around still somewhat dazed and confused. 

As the game starts, we see two more flashbacks, the arrival of where he is now, brigands robbing him and the small farm where he got his clothes and some food. He thanked the farmer and left and entered this small town. Even as he is getting his bearings he needs to figure out what to do next. He had been watching the people and did get some grasp of what they were saying, it had been a day later and hunger is setting in, he has three options. There is a guild in one direction a house of worship in another direction and a building he does nt comprehend in a third one, he never sees people from there come into his direction.

Guild

As he walks towards the guild he is met with staring eyes, not distrustful, but staring. His attire is not that of a guild person, and as he is in front of the guild, he looks around and sets himself near the door, not too close as a beggar, wondering what will happen next. For an hour or so as he watches people entering and leaving. About three hours later a woman comes out offering him some bread. He accepts and bows curiously and whispers ‘Thank you’, she looks strange, like she is not sure what he is saying, he nods, smiles and slowly eats a small piece of bread. She nods and walks away, as he eats he feels stronger and better, the bread was good, he is still hesitant to enter the guild, yet a little later a man walks out towards him. He gestures him to follow and that is exactly what he does, following the man towards one end of town and following him inside his house as the door is held open. 

Trainee of furs
He is shown the basement, which is actually nice and warm and shown a corner with a small bed. The man points at the bed and points at what might be a toilet, he is given a small jar with water and some more bread. He nod and smiles, the man walks away. 

The next morning he is given much better clothes and he is shown a fur and given some sort of bone to flesh the pelt, he does the and does all the other ones, after which he is shown how to salt the pelt., the too he does, the day ends having prepared 25 pelts.

Houses of worship
As the man moves towards the worship house, he is met by a woman, she odd at him, almost like she sees that he os not what he seems to be, she invites him and offers a cup of warm drink, he accepts nods and takes a sip, it is like tea, but very sweet. She smiles and gives him another drink, this too is warm but a little bitter, not sweet at all, but oddly refreshing. She watches the two  drinks as they impact hm and she points towards the door, she walks there and gestures for him to follow. They walk through a corridor with art and into a small hall, where others are, they partially look at him but they return to their work, they seem to be scribes. She offers a book, the book is in a language he does not know, but he recognises the letters. He then gestures towards a piece of paper and some charcoal, she hands it to him and he writes the alphabet, and pronounces the letters, after which he sets down the numbers and refers to them, he also does some math which gives a response, he is gestured to follow and he is offered to a man, the man looks down on him, yet when he is offered the roll of parchment his impression changes. He gestures the man to follow and he does, he is taken to a room, where a bed is there is a table with some food and drink and he is left for the evening

House of coins
Here he sees something that is almost Babylonian, but it is a script that reflects numbers, as he is given a parchment he gets to do the numbers in the first day he gets to write down the numbers from 1 to 30, the day ends.

So here are the first two sets of level 1 for Sony (they get to use this), and as I go through the settings of the guilds and houses of worship (house of coins, house of speech and house of thought) we get a very different RPG, because the trainee of furs would soon be out of luck in the house of worship, yet they all have different paths and different outcomes. A stage the is not merely fantasy, but the stage that closely resembles the time before the renaissance yet after the treaty of Claremont, the world was mot malleable then. Well, even as the race is on, it took me less than an hour to come up with this part, so I hope that they are awake at Sony, because as I personally see it (and if we believe GamesRadar), Christopher Weaver set the tone and I merely opposed it by making a new RPG, we all have to unite towards Sony to make sure that the Microsofts of this world do not spoil gaming for us.

Perhaps tomorrow an opponent to Fallout, but I am not too fussed, Cyberpunk will take care of that part for me. 

Well, that is my cloud of creativity taken care of, for now that is.

 

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September 28, 2020 · 00:33

Exit stage right

Yup, I am back. In the first there is the Swiss issue I discussed earlier today, as set the free movement ending is not reached, 68% rejected that part. So in this the larger stage were (as I personally saw it) the fear mongering side, but that is merely my view on one part. The election was on a few items and the Swiss have spoken, they rejected the ending free movement part and I am fine with it, yet I do feel that the term of all those benefits, I wonder if we ever get to see a list on that. But no matter what it was up to the Swiss and they rejected the notion.

Then there is the corona issue (not the beer), as per now we have 33 million infected and one million are dead. I believe that this number is actually higher, but I cannot prove it, the top three are USA, India and Brazil. In this I partially reject it because I believe that Indian infected is most likely a lot higher and those who died are cremated rather fast, so even as the numbers are too low, I cannot say that there is intent here, consider that in India the alleged personal need for ignorance is high, a nation where the Mumbai region alone has 55 million people, so 6 million over all India and only 95,000 deaths does not add up. When we apply the global mortality rate, the death count in India is close to 50% too low, a nation where population pressure is through the roof. I get it, not every person gets tested, there are not enough test packages to get even close to the testings required, there is no blame, no one is at fault, but we need to realise the setting and in a lot more places than India, the setting does not add up. 

And in the third setting, we see that there is every indication that President Trump will be exiting the stage on the right side. There is an overwhelming amount of push on places like Twitter where we see the Rock, George Takei, Billy Baldwin, David Cross and numerous others are giving their voice to Joe Biden, there is even a growing amount of Republicans on that list (including me) and the stage that President Trump has set is for the bulk of all the people no longer acceptable. I reckon that if the voting amount is raised from 55% to 65% it will be over for President Trump. As far as I can tell, at no time in history have Americans united against an elected president ever before. These events are making the anti Vietnam and anti Lyndon B. Johnson events fade. Even as Joe Biden has presently a 10% lead, it is a dangerous setting. Some people will fall asleep and will not bother voting, but the is the danger that got President Trump into the Oval Office in the first place. I would hazard a guess that if only 65% votes, one could argue that the USA does not deserve saving, not t this stage. The active people seem to realise that and their voice is simple “please vote”, they do not say who to vote for, they seem to think that this will be enough to get them to vote and hopefully not for President Trump. People like Dwayne Johnson are more eloquent in this, they name the people they endorse and give additional information. Still, I am to some extent in awe, I have never seen such a level of unison coming from America since WW2 (the Hitler is bad group) and perhaps it is important to pause at this notion. Yes, I remember my last piece, yet that was not about being pro-Trump. That was about the law and the constitution, little pesky things all kind of people want to avoid, I do not. 

What else is on the table? 

Well, games would be my guess and even as we are all still reeling from the Bethesda, now Microsoft decision, PC Gamer gives us a past overview (at https://www.pcgamer.com/au/what-happened-to-12-of-gamings-biggest-studios-after-they-were-sold/). I understand what they bring and I do not oppose it, but what stands out is that Bethesda is bought for more than the amount spend on 12 other acquisitions (not all Microsoft), there we see the the purchase of Mojang by Microsoft implies that all is not lost for Sony, yet this close to release of a new console makes it a question mark at best. In this there is also the thought that EA has options for Mass Effect and even the original trilogy, yet that is for another time. For the most the countdown clocks are running for Cyberpunk 2077 and the PS5/Xbox series X. November 19th 2020 for Cyberpunk and the consoles will come at November 12th (PS5) and November 10th (Xbox). The mayhem starts in 43 days 6 hours and 34.2 minutes.

 

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