Category Archives: IT

September 21, 2020 · 01:54

Sto what? It’s the Rage that we get to see

Yup, IGN gives us ‘PS5 File Sizes Revealed for Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls’, which is not really that much of a surprise, yet there is a part that was a surprise “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Launch Edition will require at least 50 GB, while the Ultimate Launch Edition will need at least 105 GB of space as it also includes a remastered version of 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man”, so even as IGN gives us that there is more gaming with Miles Morales, the stage that the game is that extra is a nice surprise for the PlayStation people. Yet the issue is the storage, I saw this issue coming a long time ago, basically, storage issues were on my radar since 2012, when Microsoft was a lot less eager to listen to its users. In the stage now, we see that Microsoft is finally listening, we see the stage the I foresaw in the Xbox One series X, 4K gaming requires storage and a lot of it. Now both systems will have space for an additional SSD, so there should be more than enough storage when the additional drive is installed. There is however the newness of the NVMe SSD. Even as the 2TB drives are not cheap ($368), it is the 4TB (at $1199) where the price tends to really matter. Now the are generic NVMe SSD, as the PS5 one is less generic, even faster and currently not available, the stage is coming to larger upgrades and there is no doubt that Microsoft has its own version. 

So even as we need to take to heart the message that IGN gives us, we also need to consider that there is a real setback for those relying on the digital edition versions of either console. When we consider that the PS5 dic holds 100GB, and when we also consider that the games are 50GB or larger, consider the patches that you have to download, and consider the download of any new patch, and people are surprised that I am a DISC fanatic? 

You see, before 5G is completely deployed (For Sydney that is the time of now until somewhere 2022), consider the no less than 175.000 systems (Microsoft and Sony), and the setting that the bulk will need to download 50GB optionally more than once a week. Congestion is the only path that remains. Consider that normal usage during the lockdown forced YouTube and Netflix to downgrade their streams, Netflix would not show 4K movies (as I understood), so what do you think that all the downloads of games and patches will accomplish? 

And in all this, the fact that until the systems have enough storage, games might have to be downloaded more than once, we see more congestion and IGN gives us that 2 games amount to 20%, so now add Skyrim, Fallout 4, the new TES game and the new Fallout game and this list will go on for a while, so on both systems we are likely to see 99.3% filled drives, implying the until the additional drive is installed, more games need to be installed multiple times and it will add to congestion. Now consider the stage in the UK, London, where we see 6 million people and there is every chance that there will be a little over a million nextgen consoles in London (both Sony and Microsoft), so how much congestion will they face? Consider that the lockdown will continue in the UK, a console might be the only relief that a lot will see and in all this, they will be screaming congestion next to YouTube and Netflix, did no one catch on?

It is the simplest of settings and we will see congestion all over the EU, the US, and most Commonwealth nations. So when we realise that last March we got “Sony Will Throttle US Game Download Speeds to Help Ease Internet Congestion”, how do you think it all goes when two companies launches their nextgen consoles on a global scale? When we consider that the new games are at least 20% larger and millions will take the ‘cheaper’ edition that is digital only, do you have any idea the level of congestion we will face? It will go down somewhat AFTER we get the additional drive, but for some that might be a year away, and now we will see a group of people relying on the digital edition, so no drives, that sets the stage to millions with downloads only, I wonder how many people have the bandwidth to deal with the console needs, because at $10 per GB, that bill will add up really fast. 

In the end people will trivialise their digital needs, but in about 8 weeks the first groups will set the threshold on an international stage and the news will suddenly be about how gamers use all the bandwidth, they will suddenly be the bad guys. Yet the stage we see now is all about a digital shift the the business world is not ready for and the vilification of Huawei is not helping, but I reckon that we will see the impact during the holiday season of 2020, the final numbest is unknown, because the total sold systems from Sony and Microsoft will not be clear in the initial setting, they are both part of the issue, this is nothing against either, this is the future of gaming and this will be the first time when the internet not the system will be the bottleneck, it is a new situation for all of us.

 

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September 18, 2020 · 01:29

On the way to a destination

It was yesterday that I came up with the Vatican game, a way to expose the truth and let it be seen to everyone who wishes to know. It was a stage where I got to design original gaming IP. I have original 5G IP, but the games (TESVII, Watchdogs IV), they are all based on IP others made. I came up with other gaming IP, but the Vatican view is 100% my IP (as a game that is). It is also intoxicating to design original IP. Originality is the food of life, in originality we trust, the rest can fake it until they make it.

Yet the intoxicating side is there, it will always be there and everyone creating or designing original pieces can concur. Yet in the light of the PS5, we can see that the intoxicating part tends to take over, especially as I spend $3 on a MAC game, only to be haunted by the bugs. Then I got a dose of irritating steam, I set up that in ONLY want to see MAC games, but I get every PC game in sight, can people not design anything without massive flaws? Oh and Apple is not off the hook, but I will tell you about that soon enough. I think back to the ideas of ME:A(1,2), Mass Effect Andromeda, both parts 1 and 2, in a very different coat, but that is not what is driving me today. Neither is it the new Mario 3D bundle out in 8.4 hours (when the shops open), no now is about the idea that is moving in my mind, left right centre, up and down. It was an idea I had written about before, a game that is based in Amsterdam, in about 500 years when the population is zero. It is set to people with two life cycles, a normalised on and a biological one. The biological one has no needs, nature preserves it in every way, the normalised one, needs tools, needs technology and it needs sustenance. Yet the two cycles are opposing one another and what heals one, will kill the other. I got the idea watching Aftermath: Population Zero, in this series we see scripted AI showing us what buildings will look like after 300 years and no population to maintain anything. This got me to thinking, what if we set that to a city (Amsterdam) and we deploy it parameters? It sets the stage where every game will be different, more importantly your neighbour playing the same game will get to face a different Amsterdam. That was the premise, so not only do yo get to seek for technology, it will be in a different place, optionally in a different building, in another street. It sets a different stage to survival. Yet this is merely one facet, the other facet is to adapt to a new stage, a stage where the plants that sustained you become poisonous. That too is part of the game and Amsterdam with all its canals will be about plants and water plants. So there I was considering the drive, curiosity can be a drive, but it is not powerful enough. Yet in all this there is a stage, and in that stage does technology drive us, or do we drive technology? 

It is important, but for different reasons. With ‘Dubai may be as indebted as South Africa if dissenters are right’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/dubai-indebted-south-africa-dissenters-200917095907711.html) we see the stage we need to see. Even as we accept “Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings include Dubai’s local bank borrowings to make the calculation, arriving at an estimate of about 290 billion dirhams ($79 billion). The debt burden could equal 77% of this year’s gross domestic product, according to S&P, comparable with what the International Monetary Fund predicts for South Africa and just behind Oman”, consider that the UAE has a population that is less than 10 million, about the size of Sweden, yet the debt is half of that of Sweden and here is the kicker, nearly every nation on the planet has crushing debts, so who has the actual funds that allow for these debts to continue? In a stage where we are polarised against nature, we need to see that embracing nature might be the only option left. Should you doubt the and of course, you can, consider the debts out there and consider that we are handing the debts to the next generation. In all this, IP is the only way for some to keep the next generation afloat. My version of Amsterdam was more spot on than even I realised. And if patent are the next currency, or at least the grounds for basic wealth, I am sitting decently pretty, but is that enough? I reckon that the next generation will see a very different stage of life, one that is not set on what is, and what they are entitles to, but what they can conquer, what they can overcome ad nature is a bitch when it comes to adversity. There is no denying that we are in a state of change, but our governments have gone the way of the dodo and the ostrich. They merely latch onto the largest payday possible and they cloth for bad weather, but that time has come and gone, it is no longer on what we can overcome, it is about what we can survive. You see, the owners of the debts could decide t cash in, and where does that leave us? Some even set the stage by claiming that there is good debt versus bad debt, yet in the end, all debt is bad and we need to catch on. As I see it this is the first generation that is worse off then the previous generations, in addition to that, we have created a life of legalised slave labour, legalised discrimination and legalised inequality. I wonder if we realised that when we were young, did we realise that this was a stage that we were signing up for? We might want to blame covid, but that would be wrong, perhaps it drove it to the surface, but the weak spots were already there. Even as CNBC gives us ‘What Would It Mean If U.S. States Went Bankrupt?’, yet it is too late, the US is already there, with the $25,000,000,000,000 debt, we need to accept that the annual interest would be no less than $150,000,000,000. This implies an amount that taxation is not getting, in addition to that, there are the spiralling costs of keeping the US alive (infrastructure) and it is not the only nation facing this, Japan is also on that scale and the EU is almost there, but they are all in denial that this is so, they are all setting the stage that they will overcome this, so how is that? Covid-19 brought it to the surface a lot faster, but we were already there and those who want to survive, will need to change to a patent grounded economy, which means that China has a decent advantage, so does the US and Japan less so, the EU is pretty much toast. In this everyone is in denial. You see the US amounted to $3.5 trillion collected taxation, but that is before the funding of the US started. When we take this into account, we see that the US was already $900 billion short, and that is before the $150 billion interest hits them and they are not alone, it is not merely an American flaw. Japan and the EU are on the same horse, not as big, but still a massively large horse of deficit. So when this collapses (when, not if) we see that the economic value of any nation will be the patents that they hold and as such, I personally feel that I am sitting pretty and with two new IP concepts created this week alone, I wonder where I will go next, I heard that the pastries in Monte Carlo are super yummy! (Piers Morgan told us that much) and bless his heart, I do like my pastries, so where we end up being, it will be in a very different economy soon enough, how soon? Well that depends on the powerbroker holding onto this failed horse, they like to stay ahead of the debt curve, surfing that wave for as long as they can before the wave crashes, it will drown a massive group of fin-tech people, but those who survive will come to worship the nations with patents, and as the new economy comes up, will you understand that you are merely driving these exploiters, or will you demand a fair system? Because that demand went so well the last time around. 

No matter what destination you go to, the currency you currently have will no longer have value, it is a harsh reality, but it is the one we all signed up for and the only one that the powerbroker accept, they have too much invested in the idea that their arrogance is the only one that ever mattered. 

 

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September 16, 2020 · 00:52

The delusional stage of me

Yup, that was always going to be a phase. Even if it is merely academical, the best setting towards a stage of balance is to reflect on the matter that I might be bonkers. To others this mean gaga, mad, insane optionally freaking bug nuts. Some people might be afraid of setting their mental capacity to minus 365, but I do not share that. There is the chance I have been correct on every count (I usually am), but to set that stage I must reflect on the chances that I somewhere to the right of insane and to the left of being bonkers to the umpteenth degree.

You see, it is easy to blame Reuters, but the merely propagate the news, do they not? So when I see “U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said he is confident there will be effective 5G competitors to Huawei from Western vendors at comparable costs, adding that he believes Western technologies will come to dominate telecommunications” some could consider that I am not alone in the fashion house with the long sleeved shirts, but that is just them. When I see ‘Western technologies will come to dominate’ I see a clear admission that China is ahead in 5G and they are. This s further fuelled by “I am confident that there will be a cost effective deliverables from Western trusted vendors that can deliver the same services or better services at comparative cost”, there we do not see ‘trusted vendors that will deliver’, but ‘trusted vendors that can deliver’, it sets the stage to a presumption. The former CIA director is precise with his language, he is no fool, not by a long shot. This sets a different scope for me, to counter it, I will be pushed to offer my IP to either Saudi Arabia or the UAE, an alternative is Qatar, but that has its own issues and it might cost me in the long run. If the ‘person of patent calculations’ os to be believed, I would have a lot to lose, but there is no way that I can trust most of the governments, yet Google and Huawei is a polarised field, in this setting Saudi Arabia or the UAE could be the in-between to whomever bids next, and that might be Huawei, they have the advantage on software and they are a smudge ahead of Google in that matter. The Reuters article is limited and one of the smaller articles, it is like Reuters is merely setting out one paragraph of a memo. I see no questions, no rhetoric of even speculative settings towards what is and what could be, Reuters is playing this cautiously, which in light of the ‘revelation’ is interesting, but the stage is one that I cannot ignore. Dealing with Huawei is the safe bet on the value of the IP, yet the bully tactics of the US are starting to pay off, and now that the UK government has handed ARM to Nvidia, the stage will turn for yet another turn. In all this the media remains oblivious on delivery times by Apple that in some cases are set to 20 weeks, a 2 trillion dollar company with a delay of 20 weeks on their iPad air? That means that there is a shortage of unbridled proportions and this is not merely the COVID stage, there is more, there has to be. 

When you cannot deliver for that amount of time, yet you open more and more stages of shop displays (in other chains), the shortage is fundamental and as I see it, when chip shortages hits 5G hardware, it will be fun to see some people panic. This is not a given, and not speculatively, Sony already has issues with its SoC chip. They are expected to ship 4 million less PS5 consoles in the coming year. 5G also has a SoC chip (a different one) but if one has issues, the setting that others have it too is not too far fetched. Gizmodo gave us a little over a month ago ‘MediaTek supply for 4G chips run dry, fresh stock to arrive by 2021’, it does not matter how Mediatek voices it, if it cannot supply the world with 4G chips, it will not be able to keep up on 5G either, and that is what matters. Because the moment China has a decent alternative to offer, 100% of that stock goes straight to Huawei increasing the advantage they have and at that point, how many of them will go to the US? My speculative guess is 0%, and that is where the Middle East comes into play. Huawei needs to make nice and the EU is not ready, but the Middle East is, Egypt too, although not sure if they have a lot fo needs at that point. But the stage that I predicted months ago is still coming to pass, although chip shortage was not on my radar, merely the shortsighted actions by the American govern mental administration.

And me? My delusional stage? Well that is out in the open, either Saudi Arabia or the UAE can get hold of my IP for $25,000,000 upfront with shared patent ownership, as the investor they get 60%, I keep 40%, which would be an awesome payout, especially when the US has no options but to buy in. It was a choice and a risk to play it like this, but there was no trust with some corporations, as such there was only Google and Huawei and Huawei is becoming an international discriminated party, it will hurt me, so I am taking an alternative road and these people want to play on the 5G table, I had to make a choice and I have everything to gain and nothing to lose, in the worst case I make my IP public domain, if that happens it means that governments and corporations are so greed driven that engineers on a global scale will walk out and start for themselves, I wonder if I see that happen.

Well, have a great (delusional) day.

 

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September 14, 2020 · 23:40

It was tempting

Yup, there it is, my option to consider another part of IP, or talking about the console war. There was temptation for a few reasons, but the console war won. In the first we look at Notebook Check, here we see “Convincing PlayStation 5 price leak and latest IGN poll all but confirm victory for Sony and the PS5 in the first battle of the next-gen console war”, which is certainly one way if losing at the situation, we could also include “if the figures are genuine then gamers planning on pre-ordering either a Blu-ray console or Digital Edition model are likely to be satisfied. Another IGN next-gen console poll shows huge popular support for Sony’s devices, regardless of the recent appearance of the Xbox Series S”, we have a start and it would b e quite the start, yet I believe them to be merely side reasons. You see, the real reason is also the reason why I dumped my Xbox One and all the games, I have no further faith in Microsoft, who is not ruled by deeds, but by marketing hypes. Microsoft through stupidity on the Xbox One, lost me at least twice over, and as I personally see it, there is no coming back from that one in the near future. Consider that I would be more hyped to get Super Mario 3D All-Stars free at $69, then whatever that new console will cost, so consider, I am more interesting to get a remade Mario game on the Nintendo Switch, then the new Microsoft console, their credibility is THAT low. 

I have written about these issues in the past and this is not a reuse issue, so lets get back to the article (at https://www.notebookcheck.net/Convincing-PlayStation-5-price-leak-and-latest-IGN-poll-all-but-confirm-victory-for-Sony-and-the-PS5-in-the-first-battle-of-the-next-gen-console-war.493457.0.html), where we see “An IGN poll asking Twitter residents the question “Now that we have more info on some next-gen console prices, which do you think you’re most likely to buy first?” has now closed, and perhaps unsurprisingly it has been a convincing win for Sony.

The PS5 attracted 55.3% of the votes, followed by the Xbox Series X on a respectable 23.5%, PS5 Digital Edition on 12.9%, and Xbox Series S on 8.4% (out of 138,045 votes)”. It is here that we see the 138 thousand people gave large support to the PS5, 55% to the full edition and 12.9 to the digital version, as such 2 out of three select Sony, the rest selected the other brand, yet I feel certain that Microsoft would be hurting a lot more if the Nintendo Switch Pro was part of the question. I personally have a little issue with the phrase ‘respectable’ but OK, I’ll let that slip. Microsoft only has itself to blame, it did NOTHING to listen to their fanbase, they hype and twist, but the two largest issues were not resolved for 8 years and nw they get to pay for that. The idea that many would select the Nintendo Switch Pro over a Microsoft console is something that they will have to deal with in 2021, but by then there is every chance that they are more nervous of Google or Apple sneaking up on them from 4th position, than the next Nintendo system, especially as Nintendo is already in sec and place in the console war. A good system does that and the fact that its users are looking forward to a $69 game a lot more than the next Microsoft console is a warning to the size of: ‘Careful what you wish for Microsoft!’, for them it doesn’t get much more painful, but they achieved it anyway. Oh and I do believe that pricing has nothing to do with it, if the PS5 would start at $699, I would still take it over whatever a Microsoft console goes for, I want a good game, not an exporting console, the lesson Microsoft never learned. 

Tom’s guide also gives us a forecast, in this it looks good but I am not sure if I could agree, even as Sony is a little lower, Microsoft will be a lot lower, all because of Nintendo and either Google or Apple (that fight is nowhere near settling). I think the consumers are forgetting that these two will influence the field. It leaves Sony optionally impacting 3-7 million systems up till 2024, Yet there is every chance that Microsoft will equally be impacted between 6-12 million systems up till 2024. It is a personal speculation, but there are plenty who take the PS5 next to a Nintendo, the rivalrous setting of Microsoft is a lot less so and the Nintendo Switch pro with 4K will impact the Microsoft a lot harder. You see, the Xbox Series S will be around $299, there will be a drive that is a lot harder that people think, instead of this, I can get a Nintendo Switch. Weirdly enough, they will have the Nintendo and a PS5 on the side (reversal of fortune), don’t ask me to explain it, I cannot, but I always felt that a Nintendo is welcome next to a Playstation, whilst Microsoft has aways about ‘Its only us’ and that ill hurt them a lot more then you think. 

And I am giving you this a day before Sony unleashes internet hell with their presentation, I believe that there are a few surprises for all of us, yet I do not care, I have made my decision, I made my bed and I will snore like a sawmill. I believe there is a lot more to come early 2021, but it depends on how competitive Apple and Google will get, if they decide to unite Microsoft will be done for, if it becomes a fight between the to (most likely) I feel that on personal grounds Google will win, but that is NOT a given, more of an expected vibe. In this either has a chance to push to third leaving Microsoft on 4th position and basically in the dirt, it will be the harshest lesson they ever received in 15 years. And that is merely the opening setting, there I more, but the waters are fluid and it involves Ubisoft, I wanted to go all out here, yet after reading some of the CNN stuff, I get the feeling that Ubisoft is not getting a fair shake, and that offends me a little, do not get me wrong, I’ll happily make fun of Yves Guillemot at the drop of a hat (any hat), but I have always been fair and based on things I myself can corroborate, not on expected whims lacking evidence, that is merely a no-go for me (it sucks having principles). 

Still, Ubisoft is important here, if Microsoft loses out (which is a lot more likely than you think) it will hurt Ubisoft as well, they are on all platforms, but now we get to the quote I had two days ago. With “What if we use the power of Sony and for example Google Stadia to the max what that system can give? Will the gamer not end up with a much better experience? If you doubt that, consider Metroid Prime 1 and 2 on GameCube, a game that is still mostly unsurpassed on Xbox One and PS4 11 years later, an entire generation later”, there was method to my madness and as Microsoft loses foothold, players like Ubisoft will lose massive foothold too. Their position can only be held if the systems are on equal footing and that has not been the case of at least 5 years and as one system slips behind Nintendo, the fault line becomes at least unnerving. 

So as we see Sony’s intent this week we muster the coins we have, because preordering early is massively needed. And in 2021? Well, I merely wonder how many will choose the Nintendo Switch Pro over a Microsoft console, because that too will happen more and more. And if the docking slot with an extra game slot is true, I will be on board as soon as I can. It is just too tempting.

 

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September 12, 2020 · 22:29

The set stage

It started a week ago, not directly, but the thought was born at that point, it was the realisation that the stage is set to the player, the stage is empty, especially we set the stage as we are playing an RPG game, it is perhaps the largest issue that a game can have. The danger of repetition. To get there we need to return to 1985. I was a happy chappy. I had my CBM-64 and the whole world was in front of me. That year two games came to my attention, well, not completely, the first game I had already seen as a friend had a BBC Micro B. Yet getting the games was an issue, but there it was on a Friday I was made aware that a shop in Breda (90 minutes by train) had both games. It was odd as I was living in Rotterdam, but there it was a dealer in Breda had both Ultima-3 and Elite, both for the CBM-64 and I was off to the races (the train) and a little less than 2 hours later I was in Breda having bought 1 copy of each game. My love for these two games continues to this day. Of course Elite is now Elite Dangerous (and a few thousand times bigger) and Ultima no longer exists, but the stage is there. Yet as I remember my days in Elder Scrolls Oblivion, we tend to set course for the most beneficial route, but what happens when that is not an option? In case of Ultima, what happens when 3,4,5, and 6 are played, but in this, what happens when we influence the development of the game for others? Ultima is an excellent example as the map remained close to the same in 4,5,6, and 7. But those who have played Oblivion, perhaps you remember the Rockmilk Cave north of Leyawin. Because there are two fighting parties, you get to have the drop n those who survive and get a lot more loot, early in the game that matters, and it is close to a city, so it is a ka-ching moment. But what happens, when everyone does that? We get away with it the first time, but what happens when the people in that cave become a lot more adapt? What happens when the second time around the people are suddenly 1 or 2 levels higher and that happens in EVERY subsequent visit? This takes me back to Ultima 5, near Empath Abbey there is a good source of Spider Silk, so what happens when everyone does that? What happens when we suddenly have to ACTUALLY explore to find what we need? I have been thinking of a first person approach (an Oblivion approach) to the Ultima games. You see, that game had everything from the get go and it would take plenty of designers 10 years to get close there, so what happens when we get the stage like Oblivion, but with the entire land of Britannia mapped? The 4th game would b a great start, but even as we start, we set our mark on the land. As such roads will develop different. We will end up having much better roads between Britain and Paws. There was some form of an economy in Ultima 7, but that can evolve from the 4th game onward. This sets for a very different game, as such when we start Ultima 5, we are set in a land that evolved from OUR actions in Ultima 4, not just that, as markers of thousands of players are aggregated, the map might evolve differently, We could see that New Magincia and Buccaneers Den would be much larger cities the the places we had (and reset) from 4 up to 7. It is a set shape of RPG that we have not seen before, and that makes it exciting. Even as I was (initially) designing Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration, I had something similar in mind. Not merely a stage for a quest, but a stage where we set in motion the action, but beyond managing resources, we get to have no say in the matter. 

It is  stage that is enabled and disabled by us. We tend to forget about the latter part, but it is an equally important stage, because it sets for a different stage of replaying a game. Consider Oblivion and Skyrim, what happens when we set the new Dark Brotherhood? What if we choose not to place the new sanctuary not in Dawnstar? What if there had been an option to place it near Whiterun? The choice is then set for re-playability, which was a focal point for me in TES7: Restoration. 

In addition, I had set more than one red line in the design, a red line the follows markers as you play the game, but markers that cannot be influenced after voices are made. Basically, you get to sleep in the bed you make, you do not get to design the bed. Makers of RPG’s have been so involved in getting everything there that we drown in options, but at times, the gamer can merely inhabit the stage, he/she does not design the stage, it is the cornerstone of something we want to replay and when you consider that Skyrim is still going strong since 11.11.11, what do you think happens when we take away some f the training wheels and give the player the fun of playing and the consequence of choice? It is something that had been lacking in RPG’s for the longest time. I set that in motion in my design, but in the end, it is what the owners of the IP decide to do. 

It was the only issue I had with Skyrim, the grinding to get to the legendary dragon, and I know there are part I missed (not many), yet it gets me back to the avoidance of grinding. What if levels are not the only way of measuring? Why if the player class needs to have at least 1,2 or 3 skills at 100? The thief might have bow, lockpick and sneak at 100, but what would the Mage have? What  would the fighter or assassin have? We forgot to set the stage to a larger field, I cannot tell whether that was intentional or not, I reckon that the PS4 already had the power to take care of these matters, but that is me. What if every skill will give the player an ability at 100? Not skill point driven, but automatically, it could be something trivial. For Sneak it might be pussyfoot for 60 seconds, for the Bow it might be the arrow dagger, for Restoration it might be paralyse soul, for illusion it might be daylight, and so on. We seemingly have forgotten that there are any rods to a solution, but some of the makers (due to no fault of their own) have made most missions a linear stage and we have to evolve from that. Limitations is one way to do that. When you were playing Oblivion (or Skyrim), how many benefits did you get by going to White River Watch on the second play (Skyrim) as soon as possible or Crumbling Mine (Oblivion)? We can up the NPC level on subsequent plays, but what can we gain by limiting what. Person COULD find at the first few levels? What happens when we set a randomiser to some loot not on whether it is there, but where it is? In Skyrim some books are always in the same place, what if that changes? Consider that we have 4 levels of loot, what if those levels (when it is not a quest item) are 4 mixed piles? As such, we could run to the Milkrun Cave, but what we get there would not be a guarantee, in addition, some loot can only be found ONCE! As such certain loot will not be there to spike our personal coffers, just a thought. 

In this day and age, we are not merely on one system, as such we should see what benefits the games could get, it is my personal belief that this is not done enough. I get it, makers like Ubisoft (merely an example) like to be on ALL systems, but what if we set another premise? What if we use the power of Sony and for example Google Stadia to the max what that system can give? Will the gamer not end up with a much better experience? If you doubt that, consider Metroid Prime 1 and 2 on GameCube, a game that is still mostly unsurpassed on Xbox One and PS4 11 years later, an entire generation later, the is the premise we need to return to a field that is maximised, not equalised by the lowest system around. 

Just my point of view, have a great weekend.

 

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September 8, 2020 · 21:56

About lights and tunnels

If we take the change of new technology (like 5G), we need to feel to be in charge. We tend to forget that part (I surely did at some point) and whilst I was considering a different form of new IP, I considered the small status that the thought came from a direction where my knowledge is not that great, I am no expert on technological 5G, I never claimed to be that. So when my mind grew towards a new form of mobile security towards 5G+ or even 6G, my mind set an image, yet the stage of routing, ciphering and deciphering waves are not the stages I am an expert in, yet forms of the solution come to me. I am not a mathematician, so I see images, images of clockworks, clockworks of gun cylinders and they intersect. 7, 9 and 11 shooters, cylinders of different properties are intersecting, what do you set when there are n 7 cylinders all with different time settings, n 9 cylinders and n 11 cylinders. Setting a larger stage of frequencies and cut stages that are linked, all set in an algorithm via a new form of routing, the result is a new stage of mobile communication that cannot be hacked, until true AI and true Quantum computing are a fact, the shallow circuits cannot cut through the mesh, a new stage of true privacy and at present Google and Huawei are the only ones even close to setting this up, even as they have the juice, they will need someone like Cisco to pull some of the weight. 

It would also seem a different stage to the mobile phone. I remember the old walkie talkies in the 60’s. The more advanced models had several crystals so that there was a unique signal. I wondered what we could do to emphasise on privacy in today’s mobile setting. In stead of crystals, we have a mobile phone, it is a transmitter, but what happens when it is not set to a band, but it can be set to 7,9, or 11 separate frequencies. A sort of time slice and that is the beginning, the carrier will give you the connection with the slices, their routers will set the connection and unless the hacker has the set, they can never get the entire conversation, unless they have every connection and then they would need to unscramble thousands of phones depending on the hardware whether they used 7,9 or 11 parts. If I get it to work in my mind, it could signal a new age of real privacy for people with a mobile phone.

But in the end, it is merely a sideline towards more interesting IP. The idea hit me when I was looking at a real estate site, which one does not matter. I was merely curious. It all started with a spec pal by Piers Morgan, he made a special on Monte Carlo and I was curious, as I had never been there. So as I got curious, I took a look and I noticed that speed was an interesting flaw, even on a mobile, a place where well over 50% of all searches are done, it took nearly forever. Yet when I took the Google Tester (at https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly) the site passed the test, it made perfect sense, yet the delay was real. I do not think it was them, or me. But it got me thinking of a different approach.
Google has had that setting for a long time, they call it the Lightbox ad. I had another use for the ad, or as I would call it, another media container. But the media container would require a different use, it would require the user to use a different approach, not that this would be bad, but it would optionally reduce the bandwidth that they use. If the app links to the toppling on the site, yet when we look, the app gets the link to the media container on the google server, the real estate data needs are not going via the offerer, it goes via the seeker and hey are either really seeking, or merely browsing, the browsers will no longer impede on the business, the seekers will not notice and these media containers can all be used for advertising all over the place, it is up to the realtor which ones are ready for advertising all over the place, and there is the larger kicker, it is a setting that (as far as I can tell) no realtor has considered and that is where the larger stage comes, because when 5G hits, the realtor will see a much larger benefit, they would not need to update (other then optionally an app), they will be ready, and they will push towards both their needs via their site, an app and via Google Ads, three directions instead of one and it will be a larger stage when no one was thinking ahead. 

There is light at the end of the tunnel, I switched on the lights, and no one cares who switched on the lights and that is OK, it is just that no one realised that the lights were not on, that should leave you with the consideration why no one realised that.

 

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September 8, 2020 · 18:01

What are we fighting for?

It is a question we get to ask ourselves a lot, especially when we are serving. I served but was not confronted with that question, yet the line came to me in the Paul Newman movie ‘The Secret War of Harry Frigg’ which was a hilarious comedy and it introduced us to Sylva Koscina. The movie is not the issue here at present, but the line is. When the papers give us ‘US veterans and soldiers divided over Trump calling war dead ‘suckers’’, a setting that gives us “Donald Trump was struggling to retain support of active US service members, according to polls, even before last week’s bombshell report that the commander-in-chief referred to fallen and captured US service members as “losers” and “suckers””, I wonder how delusional he was when he gave us what he gave us. This is not some typo in the stream cast, it was a massive blunder, one that should never have happened. No matter how we see the wars that the US got themselves into, I a setting where almost 1.4 million people lost their lives going back to the Civil War, and in this, I estimate that roughly somewhere between 30-70 million people have a family member who lost their life in one of the wars that the US was a part of. So we have up to 70 million people that are in a rather large stage where the Commander in Chief of the US calls the people who died for their country ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’, so from my point of view that is a setting where the bulk of those people will not vote in whatever is in the White House at this time, and he only has himself to thank for that. Or as some will say, he got himself properly fired on that one.

And the news is not over, we see dozens of news media giving us denials, and fallout of the setting and there is more and more coming and all this 7 weeks before the election. As some see it, for Joe Biden Christmas came early, anyone who was on the fence on how to vote, with relatives who served in any US war, they are now going (more likely than not) Democrat, those who were deeply Republican are more likely than not on the fence, especially is they have relatives who served. If we go by the previous election with 128,000,000 voters, there is now a chance that from those, between 20%-40% is optionally not voting Republican, implying that the vote is more likely than not going to Joe Biden. 

It is not a given, I need to tell you that from the start, but his actions against the coloured (see any Black Lives Matter stage), the women (the ‘I grabbed her by the pussy’ statement), his attacks on Kamala Harris, now we get the Military statement, it adds up, it is slightly speculative, but except for the Klan and the ultra right, he basically upset every demographic possible. This relates to votes and all the votes voting ‘the other guy’ instead of him. I myself am for the most Republican in nature, but his setting is just too unacceptable to me and it has been so for well over 3 years. To be honest, I did not chose Hilary Clinton for the simple reason that she made a mess of Benghazi, it is the only reason why I did not select her (OK, she is not a republican, which was my my second reason). We have a setting that we have a liking for a side and I am not against Democrats, I am against the way they push certain matters. Let’s not forget that both sides did way too little in the tax laws setting, which is a first that needs fixing and after 4 terms, we need to fix it. I am not sure which sides picks it up, but big tech is much deeper in the Democratic pockets, as such less will be done in that setting. 

And this is not the end, this administration has made a massive mess of high tech and 5G, it gets to be a lot worse when we consider (2 weeks ago) ‘Europe’s 5G plans in limbo after latest salvo against Huawei’, and I believe that this is merely the start. We want to look at the headlines, but there is too much out there to support the stage that the media is being talked to by other parties. 

In all we speculate left, right and centre, yet the stage is not a given. Nokia is shouting on 5G New Radio, yet the stage that ZDNet gives us is “Standards for the first and second phases of 5G are moving towards completion, and early deployments can piggy-back on 4G LTE infrastructure. But there’s plenty of work to do before the technical advances in 5G’s radio spec can support new use cases”, as I personally see it, this is merely 4GLTE++, not 5G, and that is the larger stage, tomorrow Nokia is not even on par with today Huawei and the media is seemingly avoiding that issue. So as we get “If mobile technology were a long-running TV series, 5G is a mid-season reboot, with new characters introduced alongside the old, new plot arcs complementing existing storylines, and a publicity drive that rather overstates the case. However, the possibilities for future development are much enhanced”, I am remembering Adler (the typewriter) once decided to go into the PC world, it was early days and the 80286 became affordable, so Adler decided to enter the market with a 80186 processor, it was not a win. Having 4G LTE++ is a temporary solution, but in the end to get ahead the people will need true 5G, just like some telecom companies making a marketing claim of 4G, whilst in 2010 they could offer no more than 3.5G, and we are now seeing it again, but on a much larger stage. So when the people finally figure out that what is now Nokia, they will be on the slippery slope of what they cannot ski, but others can and that has been the issue from day one. I have nothing against Nokia, I have nothing against the others, yet the issue was that Huawei has a massive advantage and the stage is being set by a bankrupt America, an America who is afraid of what they are about to lose and they are using whatever they can to stem the tide and as the stages are washing away we will be given less and less facts.  So what are we fighting for? I honestly do not know what they are fighting for all whilst their IP is debatable. So as I am weighing the options available to me, I wonder where my IP will end, to be honest, if the money is there, I do not care (Deep Rising). In my case it is not greed driven, it is a drive towards those relying on bullet point presentations and making sure they miss out, even if I miss out on a million or two. If it allows me my house in a nice warm place, I am fine, it is optionally a stage where I say no to 5 billion when 500 million will ample suffice, the bullet point people will never get it, when is enough enough? 

It comes with the answer to ‘What are we fighting for?’, merely a corner of my choice in a place of my choice. It is a simple setting and one that those who embrace ‘Greed is good’ can never understand, because that is their weakness, just like loss is the achilles heel of the greed driven and the corrupt. Until they face the ultimate loss (the loss of what they truly love) they will remain delusional on what they can make happen. Only when they face it will they finally wake up, but if all goes to plan, I will be long gone by then. 

We all fight for something, and we are entering the stage where the truth is what the powerful say it is, it is no longer set to scientific measures, it is set to subjective terms, and that slippery slope is sliding, so answer yourself, what are you fighting for?

 

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September 7, 2020 · 15:37

Software as a salad

Yup, we all have our moments of creation, although this is a redesign, the idea is out there and it is set to be an open invitation to the owners of the game Clue, to take it to a next level. What happens when we change the tally? It dawned on me when I was walking in a mall and I laid eyes on the Harry Potter edition of Clue, it looked nice, it looked revamped to be as close to the Harry Potter world as possible, but it was still the classical game of Clue. It was funny, because around an hour earlier I was sitting down sipping on a coffee and try to wake up (well a fair attempt anyway), I noticed two tables over a gorgeous young lady (19-21) and she was talking to her friend (no idea what about) and she was getting slightly over enthusiastic over pictures of Professor Snape (Alan Rickman is cool). I had to giggle internally and I would have given anything for Alan Rickman to be blushing one table over, but that was not the case, yet it started a thought and after the coffee when I noticed the HP Board game, when a thought started to take hold, what if one game could lead to another? What if we take the EA original Murder on the Zinderneuf (yes, it was original in 1983), make it a first person adjustable mystery, yet every game unlocks specific randomised new options. What if the game unlocks the game clue, but what happens when the game, a game that is different every time (apart from the stage). The game offers a challenge already, but when you get a different murder mystery every time you play it, in addition, you get the board game Clue to play at home or online with opt in players or a computer character, as well as a stage where you could optionally unlock the HP edition, the Downton Abbey edition, the Walking dead edition, the Asterix edition, a Scooby Doo edition and so on. The idea of opening a game an unlocking the other skins one at a time sets a larger premise, sets a drive to play the game, especially for those who love the game. The game would not alter too much, but the location, people and object skins do and that are cosmetic items. The option to seed the game like a minefield with other cards (like the ones in the game), but with different outfits, so the game keeps on looking fresh. Then there are the stage where the initial game when replayed will offer a person to find objects, like a Golden Snitch, the Resurrection stone, An Asterix flask, Scooby Do’s bone and so on. A game with a long lasting half life, because there will be options to unlock for a long time to come, yet who took on considering that approach in gaming until the Google Stadia became a fact? Let’s face it, I never saw this for the years that Steam was out. 

There is no end towards what is possible, but what should concern you is why the makers of current games aren’t thinking the far ahead, or that much out of the box. This is my 7th game IP concept in under a year, and in the gaming industry, these so called captains of industry haven’t come up with 50% of that amount of IP. So I leave you with that thought, will you buy software, or will you mix it up like a salad, it might not taste the way you think it does, but it is more likely then not an original taste and that counts in gaming. The stage of ‘I never had that before’ and it remains true, it is not for everyone, but when you set the goal to make a game for everyone, you merely make a game that pleases no one. 

 

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September 5, 2020 · 15:21

It was never about you

We get it, some players work on a multitude of levels. That is fine, but when a company makes hay through marketing that they are all about the consumers and we get ‘Apple delays new anti-tracking privacy measures’, we see how (what I regard to be) deceptive conduct is the alleged foundation between a company and a $2 trillion company. There is no upside for the consumer, there consumer was entitled to protection and we get “Apple said the changes were being delayed until the start of 2021 to give app developers and websites more time to adapt their services”, which makes us wonder why Apple designed the anti-tracking part in the first instance, a solution made and delayed to give trackers another way to do so, does that make sense?

So if it is a setting and we get “once the change is implemented in 2021, it will be off by default and advertisers will have to ask permission to access it”, at what stage is it in our interest to delay the change? I get it Apple needs a stream of incomes and my personal view there is one in betraying your customer base, that is the simple setting.

The other quote that matters is “Facebook has warned that Apple’s privacy plan could make one of its advertising tools “so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it on iOS 14””, which is fair enough, but I reckon that this will optionally cost Apple a few coins. The question becomes: what is the cut-off point and what is the trade off point for Apple and what ‘enhanced security’ will remain for the consumers? 

I reckon that there will be a massive decrease in free apps, it is mere speculation but yes, as mobile data becomes less available the pool for free apps and games will decrease. And let’s be fair, these companies did nothing illegal, but in the end, remember it is not about you, it is about the money you bring in and when was the last time you got that advertisement properly handed to you?

And in this it is Apple who states ‘Think different’, which is what we are doing, we want to see what deals Apple is making with the advertisers, which is NOT illegal lets be upfront about it. As such when we see “It is a world of consumers only”, “The market stands on the shoulders of consumers”, “A life of consumerism revolves around all that you want” and “Markets are built as per the taste of consumers”. We are getting misinformed, the world today is monetary based, so it becomes about the enablers and actively those who push it. That realisation is key in today’s world, the temporary setting of consumers is yesterday’s news and we only move forward when we learn that lesson, until then we are marketing tools and spending fools (an exaggeration I agree). To get ahead of the game we need to accept that marketing will happen, data captures will happen, but we also need to agree that our data is not a third party tool to be handed around the campfire. We might have woken up in the age of Cambridge Analytica, but this stage was not new. A Dutch entrepreneur and politician named Luc Sala already gave visibility to this setting 25 years ago, I was not the first (and I never made that claim). So as the haves and have not people are being segregated, we see a new form of discrimination, not on sex, religion or colour, but on the setting and longevity of your bank card (and the Credit Rating connected to this). Not your credit card, debt is not the equaliser, it is a timeline of how long you can service the organisation that wants you to service them. It is the power of the bank card that makes you a ‘Have’ in their eyes and that is where all the data is priming towards, because the firm who has the data most complete to distinguish the ‘Have’ people, that will be the winner and the US has been in the running the longest and now that China is surpassing them, now they cry in every direction, but as the remarked the ‘status’ of their reason for crying, we merely see the BS that they hide behind, just like Colin Powell and his silver briefcase (Iraq anyone?).

And the US has another problem, the stage was partially going smooth that is until the 45th President made a mess of the entire setting and the entire playing field, not only did he set the stage to a visible perspective, in his utter lack of intelligence he set the stage on ‘national security’ and ‘China’ whilst the evidence would not support it and as this is getting more and more visibility, Huawei is gaining momentum outside of the US and considering that there are less than 350 million Americans, and a growing customer base outside the US surpassing billions of ‘have targets’, that is the stage where the US is losing grip, that is where a lot of the Have’s are. And the stage to find them will soon change, the stage will be about uniting those who have and in this the US is behind, and the lag is increasing. 

There is no stage to make any kind of a reliable prediction who will win, but as far as I can tell, it will not be the US. The stage in the EU is still fluid, several banks were in the running. I first took notice of Credit Agricole in 2018 in that regard. The quote “Acting within the framework of a regulated activity, we offer you and provide products and services requiring the collection and use, as data controller, of the personal data of individuals related to you (for example: employees, shareholders, agents, legal representatives, beneficial owners, family members, third-party representatives, etc.) (the “Data Subjects”)” is set to a larger stage and it is important to realise that Credit Agricole never did anything illegal or against the European GDPR. Yet I took notice of ‘the personal data of individuals related to you’ and I found a little more than bargained for. So when we realise that there is more to life than being identified as a consumer and that the truth, but did you consider that you are optionally set to a different spectrum?

 

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September 1, 2020 · 05:36

The stage I partially ignored

We all have that, we hear and see something and partially ignore the small print (if it is stated at all), she deals are good. I have made no secret of my aversion to Microsoft, that remains, yet I thought that the Game Pass was a great idea, so when I was shown ‘Xbox Game Pass is a steal — so why aren’t people using it?’ (at https://www.laptopmag.com/news/xbox-game-pass-op-ed) two days ago, I was a little confused. I might not be a Microsoft fan, but there are plenty who love Microsoft and Xbox, it is their choice and they are welcome to it, in that part I would think that they would love the Game Pass, yet the article give me a few items that I was not aware of.

The first part is “If you’re in the middle of a long RPG like Final Fantasy XV and it is removed from Game Pass, you’ll have to buy it. In Game Pass’ defense, the service gives you a month’s warning when games you’ve downloaded are about to leave. You also have the option to buy the game at a discount”, as well as “Some players feel more comfortable buying and downloading games individually rather than getting them through a service like Game Pass. It sounds like semantics considering you’re downloading games regardless, but perception is key, and to some, knowing they are getting a game through a service turns them off. In their eyes, Game Pass removes ownership” it gives a stage where we basically never own games, we merely rent them and there is a plus side and a down side to that, it is slightly more clear when we set the Microsoft store quote next to this “Get 2-4 free games every month and save up to 50% on game purchases”, so basically you pay $15 a month and that gives access to some games, whilst buying a game is up to 50% cheaper. So imagine Assassins Creed 15 (whatever version) and any AC fan wants to own them, so that month the bill could be at least $65. How long until the basic setting of the game pass is no longer a real sweet deal? 

And that is not the end, the more people are hit with the temporary setting ‘removed from Game Pass’, the gamer gets the setting of an expensive pass. I am actually amazed that Microsoft did not do a better job there. How long until we see that the games that they offer have a mere 1 year (or perhaps even 2 year) shelf life? It is not a path I expected Microsoft to make and when we see “Game Pass is $9.99. For $14.99, subscribers get Xbox Game Pass for Xbox and Windows PC along with Xbox Live. This also includes access to play online games. An additional $5 on top of the $10 for Xbox Live doesn’t sound so bad, but to some gamers, it could very well be a deal-breaker”, which is not news, but when we see the temporary approach to ‘renting’ games, the entire matter changes. There is no denying that $15 is a good deal if the games are forever yours to play, in a temporary setting and the obligation to buy some games afterwards the setting becomes a non-deal for a fair amount of gamers and when we see this on top of the other stages that Xbox gamers have been exposed to since 2012 we see a stage where Microsoft might only have its Cloud and mobile gaming left, they squandered whatever advantage they had and now we see a stage where Xbox ends up in fifth position behind the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia and Apple Arcade, that might be a setting I get to see in 2022, as such if Microsoft does not adjust its path they will end up dead last in a game where they could have been in second place.

That is the price of setting a business stage in a world where you do not comprehend the participants.

 

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