March 31, 2022 · 23:40

Enraged two (or too)?

Yes, the previous stage that I gave to you in ‘Rage’ is not done yet. It was more than just a ramble, there was a lot of truth in there, but it was not about the setting, it was about the stage. You see, we have seen movies in that direction. Dutch, Swedish, American, and other nations have given us a movie in that direction, but NONE of them have ever considered a game in that direction. This all started when my mind took a dive into the games I played on the Gamecube and I suddenly remembered ‘Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s requiem’ and my mind took a wander. It dove straight of the deep end. The PS2 gave the people Bully, the Gamecube the game I just mentioned. But none of them gave the people a game about rage, about the insanity of rage.

Consider a game, that plays in a large city, not unlike the cities we see in Watchdogs, but here it is not about being special, it is quite the opposite. You are confronted with rage, a buildup of rage and in the beginning you can make the character play games, play sports and take frustration out in the boxing ring, but it does not work completely and as you are surrounded by elements, the rage buildup is more distinct, more profound. We can focus on the AI of an NPC, but it needs to be more, we need psychological elements to set the game in a direction. I have no illusions, most platforms will not go for this, but PC’s and streamers might. This has never been done before and I like games that were never done before, I like the originality and the effect it will have. Consider that political opposition that it will bring. Blaming games towards violence, whilst their own political ploys are exactly why this is happening. A game that gets the talking going on the ludicrous setting we face in every day life and the consideration that the people are never given. So what happens when you need to blow off steam and you cannot ever be seen doing this? In nations where CCTV is drowning the population (London), in places where social events are the tone setters to injustice (San Francisco/Los Angeles) and that is before we see the impact of population pressure (New York) and you, as a frustrated person needs to keep your sanity or be confined to less nice places where the insanity of rage is total. A game like that has never been made and perhaps it is time to make such a game. Perhaps it is time to introduce the people and the larger audience of the true settings that a lot of people face and the impact it tends to have on the frustration levels of people. I can guarantee you that it will not be a nice game, it will never be a game that gets the larger population across, but it can become a niche for a few million gamers, and that represents millions in revenue and the people are eager to play games, especially games that have never been made before. 

Now consider one of the most hated games Manhunt. A game that sold 1,700,000 copies. It represents well over 51,000,000 and consider that this game required an infusion of less than 15 million, so well over twice that amount was made and when did anyone turn down the option of making 300%+ of their investment? Now, there would be a risk, a game like this always has risk, but when you add elements, when you entice towards something never done before and you appeal to the teenage mind. It makes for an interesting setting and an optional side of revenue that many never considered. A stage I merely show here, so that the indie developers can get to work. Close to half a dozen IP gaming ideas in these blogs and it seems that it will take some time for people to catch on. There is a reason I played the cards in the way I did. My views have been increasingly correct and that should be enough, but it is not merely about what others make, it is a way to show that the age of big brands is ending. We look at Microsoft and Ubisoft, but it is not only them, that list is increasing and the larger players are losing track of where they were, of what they could do and that is one part of the stage that allows the indie developers to take hold and claim their slice of a $200,000,000,000 pie and whilst they grow, those who relied on created hype and spin end up with less, the world of gaming needs progress, actual progress, not what some claim is progress. That is the setting we see. Why do you think that people are going nuts over Elder Ring, Horizons Forbidden West and soon Hogwarts legacy. The gamer recognises a work of love. Some makers think that they can tell others what they should love, but when did that work out that way? Perhaps in 1985 when there were less than 20 games per year. Now that stage differs and we keep on getting more of the same. Even now a game less than 6 months old being sold for $39, a stage now essential to these brands because they could not deliver quality and this is as good as they can get it, so how will we see the next batch of games, the next batch of true original gaming? Sometimes we cannot rely on vanilla games, we need to go dark for someone to see the light and give us a next version of something totally new. Something they have never seen before and that is what Nintendo has done on the N64, Gamecube, Wii, and Switch. So to follow in the footsteps of the original makers they need to rely on thought and creativity, not to rely on the spin of the most powerful console in the world. It got defeated by the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch), so creativity is essential and perhaps taking it for a ride on a really dark road is not the worst idea to have. It all depends on the willingness to take a chance.

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March 31, 2022 · 20:11

Rage

We all get overwhelmed by it, I for one am experiencing it right now. Affronted by a cocksucking son of a whore alcoholic OCD piece of trash who opens the outside doors in the corridor, making us freeze in our apartment and a landlord who refuses to do anything about that piece of trash. But he complains like a little bitch on heating cost and how we should wear our coats in our apartment, but he will not do anything about the alcoholic piece of trash. I have been waiting for a decent apartment for over 8 years. It gets to me, to be honest, If I can cricket bash that shit to death, and spend the rest of my life in jail, and I might at present actually consider it. The IP is now safely hidden and ‘encrypted’ on 4chan and who finds the key and the files, they are welcome to it. I am that fed up with it all. I have had enough. 

This rage is getting to me, in summer I do not care, but summer is over and 3 months of cold is not what I am signing up for. I cannot think straight, and all this could make a decent movie, see the setting of housing shortage, see the inability of NSW housing and the larger station of what is available is just not fit for living in. The floods do not help and the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/28/property-developers-fight-nsw-bid-to-make-houses-more-energy-efficient-and-climate-resilient) gives us ‘Property developers fight NSW bid to make houses more energy-efficient and climate-resilient’, there we see “Property developers in New South Wales are fighting against the introduction of a wide-ranging planning policy aimed at ensuring houses are more energy-efficient and climate-resilient, which one environment group described as “everything you could ever dream about””, yes the housing milkers see their margins collapse and they fight it, but the setting is two fold and something will have to give. Why do you think that my IP has a Canada clause installed? Australia has played a dangerous game for too long and now, with ageism, with catering to certain players one part gives, or the other part gives and anyone caught in the middle will go mad, insane with rage and a larger play will be made, the question is will they cater to common sense, or to whatever seems the most profitable one? So if one of the two players decide not to take the IP bait, it all goes to China and they end with nothing. When you have no moves left, the one that relies on the pain of the indifferent is the most rewarding of all. Because when they suddenly realise the bill they face, it will be all about the mis communication, about the complexities, but that implies that they have moves left and that is about to end for them. I wonder how many ‘friends’ of ‘friends’ of power-players will complain about the injustice THEY face?

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March 31, 2022 · 00:33

The forgetful disabler

This happens to us all. I believe it happened to me this evening. This is not easy to explain. At times our mind fills the void. 

For example, the simple guy (me) wants to dream of that super sexy doctor (for whatever reason) and there is Doctor Remy ’13’ Hadley that comes to MY personal assistance in feeling relaxed (Dr. House was busy) and my inner (really happy) angel smiles, it was my day to make that part of me that feels like a million bucks to feel like a vagrant. Sometimes life smiles. But the brain can do the opposite too You think you are in your apartment, relaxing on the sofa, but the sofa feels different, almost inhumane and the brain gives you a 60 minute ride that contains 4 seasons of American Horror Story and then some, and the brain kicks in and removes that part instantly the moment you wake up. I think I just had one of those, so the person is trying to remember Olivia Wilde and the brain goes ‘No, no’ you are so much better off not knowing what just happened to you. And the brain relaxes because in the corner of my mind is the phrase ‘the guardians of the realm of Hades’ and I have no idea what it really means, but for some reason it feels really good not knowing. Yet I believe that the brain is trying to teach us in the light and the dark sides, the problem is that not all lessons are sweet ones, the dark bitter ones are also not to be denied. In sports it would be like being the goalie for an NHL team and whilst the mind is trying all options of a defence, all options of blocking the puck, the brain gives you a rundown of 20 years of hard moments and that is fine, but if it leads to that one sweet moment of blocking the winning goal of the opponents, should we ignore or avoid it? Should the brain listen to Elmo Zumwalt stating that the newly designed weapon will hurt that vessel carrying his name, all whilst it will (and was designed to) stop the Iranian vessels. To listen to the captains of your better judgement sounds nice, but that voice does not tolerate the bad instances, yet those too have a lesson to teach, we all know it and ignoring the voices from the dark corner could be equally dangerous. We can listen to the environmentalist on how bad our planet has become through plastics yet plastics protect our heads in the form of helmets. They keep us safer in our cars in the form of seatbelts and the application grows in all directions. It is the application of plastics for quick consumerism, the application of cutting the corner of waste that makes it evil. To ignore one good corner because there are three bad ones is not a bad thing, but it is the rejection of our consumerism that makes it a problem. As such I feel happy that the brain denies me something, but it also makes me wonder what my own limitations are, the lesson the dark corner was ready to give me. It is its own version of safety through disaster, yet I also know (anyone from the merchant navy does) that there we see the basis of why fire and emergency services exist. Our current world environment subjects us to an abundance of hazards, risks, and dangers, both seen and unseen. And it is in that dark moment we see a new way of avoiding harm, enabling thousands to avoid harm. You see in 1860 (or around that time) that gave British Captain George William Manby an idea that he developed into the modern fire extinguisher. I truly believe he did not get to that point be thinking about his version of Olivia Wilde, his idea came from a much darker corner than anything I can design and now that dream from darkness saves tens of thousands of lives every year. So should we avoid looking there? Perhaps Hades has its own Guardians, perhaps we were never supposed to see what was there. Yet I believe that not all that is dark is truly there to hurt us. It is like a thimble-full of Bitrex into an Olympic swimming pool and you can detect the bitterness in those two and a half million litres of water. Should we therefor stay away of Bitrex? It is not dangerous or poisonous, it is merely the the most bitter of substances. You think it is a weird, but there is a reflection. A Jewish Dutch writer wrote in 1957 ‘the Bitter herb’ a book still read in preparations for exams 20 years later. A reflection of the distance and sometimes even hostility displayed by many people in the Netherlands towards returnees from the concentration camps. A lot of us seemingly forgetting the darkness of that lesson, because if that lesson was really learned we would not see Americans in Nazi outfits (something that happened this week). I believe there is danger to shy away from our darkest lessons and the brain is protecting us, but it is doing us no good at present. That is the part I fear happened to me and I know not why the brain did this. Yet we also know that the brain protects us from needless harm, yet is all harm needless? I do not really know the answer to that question, but the storyteller in me wants to know, because it allowed me to come up with the premise to several games, several concept scripts and it also drives IP innovation, if you disbelieve that ask the people who once met Captain George William Manby and the invention he left us. There are dozens of good examples and yes not all ways to Rome are comfortable ones, but is that because the journey was a bad one, or was it because some decided that it was a great way to cut corners? 

The disabler called forgetfulness is not always a shiny white steed. At times it is a simple bright coloured donkey and that cretin is a bloody stubborn one. Ask any Asinara, the mere question some have is ‘Are you an incomplete albino?’ Whilst the fact in the back is that they are the only white donkey’s and yes, that happens only in Italy. It reflects on the jackass in us, and every jackass is a MALE donkey. They said Moses was lost in the desert for 40 years, perhaps because he was too stubborn to ask his wife for directions? It is merely a thought, but that is how all things start, with a mere thought. It allowed me to create IP, stories and concepts. So where should you be looking for the next invention? In the sunshine, or in a dark corner? And if you wonder who the guardians of Hades are? Ask a girl named Felicity Heaton, I reckon that several streamers ignore looking in one direction because their male ego’s are offended, but yet there is a female director named Olivia Wilde, now if there was someone around with a large sack of coins, they might do wisely to take a gander in another direction, that is how wealth is created, not by saving £180 on a bottle of shampoo at Harrods. That does not make you rich, it merely stops you from squandering something you already had. But that is a lesson for another day.

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March 30, 2022 · 19:06

Two paths to similar stages.

I had an idea today on a different stage of Customer service, a new setting of software, one that intertwines with CRM software and it allows any CRM agent to have a much better grasp of the conversation it is trying to have. The idea came out of nowhere and as my mind was iterating the same idea again and again, it started to add parts, it added ideas and it added concepts. At the centre of that heel was Adobe to some extent, but it was also a new iteration of contact management within CRM. We see the stages that some people state that they have something in that direction, but they do not. They have no earthly idea on what is required there. A stage that allows CRM, Customer Service, Technical support, Marketing and telesales use the SAME data set, but each their own merits, each their own powers and NO ONE has it, not to this degree. I was actually surprised that it took me so long. I worked in Technical support for decades, the path did not dawn on me until today. Actually I have been fighting that concept since I wrote ‘Pristine and weird’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/24/pristine-and-weird/) on February 24th 2022. You see, I talked on a few settings, but my mind saw that Adobe had a few other options as well and that started the thoughts in my mind, but not to the degree that happened today. Today my mind set out to make a much larger premise and a much larger stage for service locations, for CRM locations and for customer service agents. The stage evolved from nothing to a behemoth. And that stage is essential. I have seen presentations from all kinds of vendors and they keep on designing the same wheel. Why? Why did Microsoft not wake up when they had the chance? Now we see that Adobe has a much larger track setting in several regions on several train (and training) sets. And Microsoft never woke up. Weird, is it not?

But that is merely one side. My mind was reconsidering my article ‘Rings’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/27/rings/) where I was considering a new approach to RPG games in particular the NPC part. Yet there is a link between the two. If we reconsider the image (from the Arrival), what happens when we ‘see’ these rings as tracks on a stick, but not s a record, as individual rings and they are linked through paths of the NPC character and the emotions that they show. Bright, dark and shimmer modes. Each mode with its own connections to the ring of a word and connected stance of that NPC. Today’s systems cannot cope with this at present but there is no saying what the PS6 will be able to do and even as I give a reflection of what we see, the storage of it will be another puzzle entirely. We need to consider different paths, different approaches to data and to what is available. You see AI is not ready, but elements of it are and no matter the amount of data a NPC faces, when every NPC becomes a shallow circuit, the reality of that NPC will be so confusing to the mind of the gamer, that he will no longer be able to tell the difference between single player and multi player games, because all the NPC characters will become so human and optionally humane that the gamer becomes overwhelmed and there is another upside. The NPC could become linked to any gamer allowing for evolution of that NPC. The gamers will be unaware but it evolves NPC characters still having its own responses, its own actions, but through shallow circuits they become too human to the mind of the gamer. Now take that part and see how deeper learning allows for a CRM setting that gives any agent the top responses that connects to the people they talk to. The Customer Service agent will come from “How can we assist you with answering the questions you have?” The marketing agent gives them “How can we assist you gaining a better understanding of your customers?” The Telesales agent will give them “If we can offer a solution that enables solving this issue, would it become a real solution for you, or is there anything more that you need to enable your targets?” Different department heads, different divisions, one data set and enabled and managed by one manager per division setting the claim of their expertise. Not one system does that, why not? And Microsoft has had decades to go there, but they did not, now systems are going towards the larger Adobe stage and their cloud solutions and when they connect to CRM systems they will have a much larger upper hand than they ever had before. A stage ignored, it was not sales enough, it was not revenue enough and it was no real solution. I have seen all the excuses going back to 1990, yet with the cloud the people were so driven to be on the cloud that they forgot that the customers in the cloud evolved their needs to and when we see Adobe and Amazon Web Services evolve, we see Microsoft falling further and further behind. And whilst Forbes gave us three days ago ‘Zero-Day Windows 10/11 Hack Left Unfixed For Seven Months And Counting’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2022/03/26/microsoft-windows-11-windows-10-hack-attack-zero-day-new-windows-update/) we see that not only  does Microsoft have larger issues, there is every chance they are losing too much ground to remain innovative or iterative for that matter, It seems a larger stage is opening up and Microsoft becomes the joker (it cannot participate in the game of bridge that follows). 

A stage that opens a weird connection between games and CRM, but they are both about connecting to the consumer/gamer, so it is not that weird. 

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March 29, 2022 · 22:20

Stop Stupid Spending

In light of my previous article (at https://lawlordtobe.wordpress.com/2022/03/29/a-dangerous-ploy/) ‘A dangerous ploy’, we now see the BBC giving us ‘Can the super-rich solve America’s budget problem?’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60904900) the simple short direct answer is ‘No, they cannot!’ You see, it is the American administrations who clearly overspend. When you create a $1,900,000,000,000, all whilst it represents double the amount you collect through taxation, you are the losing member of a losing party. And all the clever calculator games you play will not help you. It is a sliding scale from the decline of a decent amount of wealth deep into the debt and depth of bankruptcy is all you have to look forward to ad there is no going back from this path, the US is too deep in debt already. When it was clearly visible that the overhaul of tax laws was the only real path for over two decades, the superrich will not help them overcome anything, not even their own stupidity. So when we see “The proposal aims to capture more of the wealth created by the soaring stock market of the last few years. It targets the roughly 20,000 taxpayers in the US worth more than $100m (£76m). Investor Warren Buffett, Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be among those affected.” Yes you can try that approach, but in light of the money you are spending, money you do not have, it will amount to nothing. The first thing that they face is to reduce their annual budget to no more than $730,000,000,000 that is the the first thing that needs to happen, reduce it by well over 50%, that is the impact they need to face. And then those additional taxations will need to be used for 100% to reducing debt. Even then they will come up short for close to 12-15 years. Should any millionaire and billionaires have remained in the US, they could have a chance, but only if US spending goes down by well over 50% until well over 2037. That is the reality of the plight they face. So when you consider the harsh reality of “Mr Biden’s budget also calls for raising the income tax rate on households earning over $400,000 from 37% to 39.6% and increasing the tax on companies to 28%, partially reversing cuts made under the Trump administration.” It merely works if the overspending of budgets is stopped, if not this is a waste of effort and when the Americans run away from their land to try and keep what they have, we will see that zero tax havens will suddenly get an investors infuse of 200%, all whilst all this was clearly out in the open from 1999 onwards. So whilst you all consider “For the 2022 financial year, the annual deficit is projected at more than $1.2tn. Overall debt passed $30tn last month.” All whilst this administration wants to spend an additional $700,000,000,000, you see the first reality out there and it is not taxing the rich, it is controlling stupid politicians spending money they never had in the first place and it goes back to the age of Clinton, it has been going on for that long and now we see some knee jerk action that has no impact, not until the US budgets are under control. But go on, spend billions on some joke (aka USS Zumwalt class) for the amount of $4,400,000,000. And whilst we think it is cheap, consider 

That it was delivered in 2016 and from then on it faced a trial of break downs and repairs, it required redeployment of weapons, the smart guns never worked and it is now a missile launcher at 500% of the price of such a ship. That is where the budgets fall short again and again and that is merely the defence budget, a budget that has shown failure after failure. All this beside the infrastructure requirements that have not been met in close to half a decade, and they now want some lame ‘tax the rich’ approach to fix it all, all whilst the spending tap is not closed by 55%-70%. And as such, the super rich will never solve this problem. Not until Washington DC wakes up and smells the junk they shovel in. So whilst we see think tank after think tank contribute colourful mentions like “America’s 400 richest families have more wealth than all 10 million of the country’s black families combined, according to a 2020 analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.” No one is asking how large the price tag of that analyses was. We see a group of people blaming a group of people all whilst they enabled all this by not overhauling tax laws, it is now well over 20 years that spending needed to be overhauled, but no, even this administration overspends by close to $1,700,000,000,000 and it does not stop with the $1.2tn deficit, the interest of $30tn is also due and there is no solution for all that, the previous leaseholders of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue made that mistake and it is about to get a hell of a lot worse, that much seems clear and when the brain drain starts in the US, whatever is left there will not be suitable or liveable, that too is a clear consequence. And it was not rocket science. When you spend more than you collect, when you spend more than you have, this happens and it is happening now and the superrich were never part of any solution, their spending and their own tax system was, and it has been clearly out there since 1999. 

And when you wonder why I mentioned the USS Zumwalt? Well Yesterday we got “With political and economic stakes possibly riding on a defense project that saw a 17% cost overrun from $12 billion to $14 billion and the number of vessels being dropped from 32 to only three, besides a raft of nagging flaws in the overtly advanced system, the USS Zumwalt series of warships will not be scrapped” three overpriced dinghy’s and they are about to refit them for “Advanced Gun System (AGS) will be replaced by another defining weapon of our times – hypersonic missiles.“ A collection of ships, not a decade old will face billions in cost for refit, its stealth hull no longer doing what it was designed to do. On the other hand, I designed a weapon to sink it for a mere $250,000 per deployment, so who was stupid enough to sign that contract at $14,000,000,000 per vessels setting the stage from 32 ships to a mere three of them? You really think the super rich were the problem or these overspending politicians with their heads in the clouds? Someone OK’ed spending $14,000,000,000 on something that never properly worked and they are about to spend more. 

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March 29, 2022 · 04:11

A dangerous ploy

Today, we see President Biden play a dangerous card. It is his version of ‘tax the rich’. Now lets be clear, I have nothing against it, I find it unfair, in stead of ‘properly tax everyone’ he goes after one group, a populist approach to this issue. A setting we see but do we see it correctly. Presidents going back decades have been unwilling to overhaul tax laws in the US. The difference here is that it comes with an added bonus. The article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-budget-boost-military-raise-taxes-billionaires-2022-03-28/) gives us ‘Biden’s budget boosts military, raises taxes on billionaires, companies’ it comes with the added text “U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday submitted a $5.79 trillion budget plan to Congress that calls for record peacetime military spending while raising taxes for billionaires and companies and lowering government deficits.” In 2021 the US estimates that they expect to collect $3.86 trillion. Expected does not mean achieved, it is an educated guess. In 2019 they collected $3.46 trillion. The 2020 numbers are also expected. So in this, how does the US give us a $5.79 trillion budget, $1,930 billion more than they will collect. Money the US does not have and the billionaire fix get them nothing more than about $360 billion in the next decade, according to the document. So $360,000,000,000 in a decade does not tell us how the US will survive $1,930 billion more than they expect to collect. An additional of $1.9 trillion more and there is no space to wiggle, the chance is that those with more than $100,000,000 will more completely to the zero tax havens like Dubai, Bermuda, Bahamas, Monaco and a few other places. It will start an economic brain drain and a wallet drain to boot. It is a dangerous play, especially as (again) no proper tax overhaul follows. 

As I see it, this dangerous play will make the rich avoid the US like the plague, for a lot of them it no longer pays them to stay there and the moment this administration figures that out, the danger will overwhelm them. 

What I do not get is why the overhaul of tax laws are avoided to this degree. You see, it has always been about proper taxing people. A setting that might not make people like Elon Musk, George Soros, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos happy, but it is an essential one. As such the overall quality of life in the US will slip and slide to lower levels still. And when it does the average person will see no real reason to stay there, the exodus will start and it will stops the US industrial machine to a near standstill position.

So when we see “Called the “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax,” it would assess a 20% minimum tax rate on U.S. households worth more than $100 million. Over half the revenue could come from those worth more than $1 billion.” We need to realise that ‘Tax the rich’ is dangerous. I have nothing against taxing billionaires (I am not one, and the next 3-4 years I do not expect to become on and I am not American), but when it is unfair taxation, it merely means that the courts will overflow with cases and if the next republican president stops that setting the US will be nearly $2 trillion out of pocket yet again and no achievements were made.

That is the danger of the play and that is the case that will stop the US. Yes, the Americans are so much better off than the previous fellow, are they not?

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March 28, 2022 · 22:43

The stage selected

That is what I keep on seeing. Not the slap, not the presentation, not the conversations. The setting of the stage. For me the question remains why Dune was not an option for best Director. This is not the objection to who won, I never saw that movie. I am not debating the winner, not objecting to the winner, my mind is screaming at Dune becoming a non-nominee as best Director. And the competition was seemingly fierce this year. The mind screams when something happens that we cannot comprehend, or perhaps seemingly comprehend. 

And the screams are oud within me because I am not the only one feeling this, the internet has been busy for a while on this and it is not the first time the Oscars are under debate. #OscarsTooWhite, is merely one of many objections over time. So when I see  movie that blew me away, getting 6 oscars that it shined in and is a non-competitor in another category is just a little too weird. Denis Villeneuve outdid any other director ever involved with Dune, he outdid what we expected and he outdid what we could not grasp. So I am not opposing that Jane Campion won, merely that Villeneuve according to me and many many others deserved to be a nomination. It is that simple. When we are confronted with such a blow normality goes out the window, and there is no stopping the confused mind and it is also a larger station, I cannot debate that the others did not deserve to be nominated, according to many they really did, I do not oppose that, perhaps it was as simple as number of votes, and I am willing to accept that those who became nominees just had a few more votes. Still the boggled mind stares out of the window trying to make sense of it. Yet in all this, I also recognise that 007 fans wonder why they only won one of them, it is perhaps the setting of what we think should happen, to what we think does happen. A stage that overshadows us all. In the end we are all slaves to what the mind perceives and I get that, I really do, but the mind still screams and that is hard to swallow, especially when we see a movie that blows us away. Perhaps within ourselves we nurture the populist voice, it is something that is not easily stomped and it seemingly in charge of us to some degree.

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March 27, 2022 · 23:05

Rings

We see them, we are confronted with them, we embrace them and we reject them. Yet weirdly enough, for the most we never ignore them. You see the circle is its beginning and end anywhere on the circle. We have accepted this long before we started to set our faith to wedding rings. Yet in the last few days I have been thinking through the ring process. It matter not why it was done, yet that it was done is still important to some degree. As I was considering the stages of pipelines (sales tracks), life cycles (marketing tracks) and circular service level agreements, I suddenly realised (to coin a phrase)  that games and gaming is not set to such a track. It makes sense, and at the same time it does not. A game is like a painting there are no cycles, there is no repetition and weirdly enough I suddenly found a painting that represents my thoughts. The image below is a ring, a cycle. (Unfortunately, I have no idea who made the painting)

But we see a third dimension and optionally a fourth dimension as well. That dimension cannot be seen, but we feel it is there. I reckon that Hogwarts Legacy unleashed a little more than I bargained for. I think it started when I saw the movie Arrival (2016) with Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams. The language shown in the movie started something in me. Not about aliens, that was clear for decades. Do you think that people really look like Dennis Rodman, for real? (LOL). No It is not about the people, it was about the language we were shown. So when you get that we take a sidestep. You might have heard of chainmail, but do you know how the rings are made? 

So as we see the rings, we take another gander towards that alien language, but now we take a sidestep, consider that every sentiment is in a ring, but more than merely sentiment and language, it become aa stage of digital markers as well, like a polyphonic approach to language and sentiment, vocal intonation. You see, we think of games, we think of NPC characters, but the need for NPC characters to become less singular dimensional becomes increasingly important and there lies the rub, you see we think of today’s emotion whilst relying on recording and programming stages that are decades old and something will have to give. 

And even as it (for now) seems impossible and largely overplayed, do you really think that this is far fetched when the PS6 comes and whatever Microsoft (if they still exist) has? We need to be thinking not merely of the games that come out in 2022, we need to think about the games that need to be made with a release date of 2030. And should we come close to the station of some kind of true AI, what we now have does not even come close to what is required and using yesterdays solutions will not cut the butter. As such my mind went wondering on the sound of the voice. If we cannot tell what is truth now, what do you think will happen next year? The only way to beat this is to look at new and innovative ways to find a way to store and retrieve them. The blue painting help me realise that and even if that solution is for now out of reach, the idea that we limit ourselves today on what CAN be done will result in a tomorrow that never comes, but Microsoft will soon learn that lesson the hard way, 50% of that happening is merely 1-2 steps away at present. And suddenly some other parts come to mind, but that is for another day, but I can tell you that it involves a stick (for now).

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March 27, 2022 · 15:16

Skill to kill

Yes, very bright, is it not? But in the last few days I have been mulling over the RPG game I out here on my blog over the last few months and whilst playing Horizon: Forbidden West something stuck in my mind. 

You see something got stuck there and the skill tree is fine for THAT game, but for me, for the player it had drawbacks. It is not the game, it is within the game, and that is fine, but consider that  you play in such an open world. In that open world you tend to go in one direction. I tend to go the way of the sneaky archer. And that game limits what you as a sneak can do. This is not a weakness, it is not a flaw and they did NOTHING wrong. But the thought was in my head and stayed there.

So then we saw the smallest piece of Hogwarts Legacy and they gave us another path. In that path we are given:

Now, that is also a path we see, but my mind started blending the two elements. You see we get the stage of limitations, we get the stage of directions, but we often miss the blending of choices and there we ultimately see the stage where some are given the tendency to unlock EVERY skill. But that is not realistic, it is also counterproductive. So what if a game gets another edge. Consider that CCG games in the past had a limited version and a generic version. The limited version was black or silver, the factory set was gold (a factory set is a complete set of all cards bought at beginning). Now consider that we connect skills to a trait like the CCG game Illuminati did.

In that game we saw the head you ‘ruled’ in this example ‘Shangri La’ (see below), it can connect to any card, in this example we use a card named ‘Big Media’

As you can see it connects from a higher card on one side and connect to THREE sides to smaller skills. Now some have 0 connectors, some have one and a few will have two, but YOU decide the application of that skill. Now consider we go back to the first card, it is in the game not called ‘Shangri-La’, but ‘Covert’ and we have 2 of those cards in the beginning of the game ‘Covert’ and ‘Overt’, now we have archery which is (comparing to Big Media) not 4/4, but 2/3 It can connect to 2 stacks and enforce three connecting skills. In addition any card can be upgraded. The Big Media resistance will be its own power. So over time that number goes up (as you become a more skill-full archer), now consider that we end up with 4/5 stacks Covert, Overt, Social, Commerce, Faith and Govern. Six elements and you have either 4 or 5 stacks so something has to give and in the beginning you only have two stacks, so it will be about choices. How will you decide? 

And there is no better choice here, it will be about YOUR choice as you play the game. Now consider that as you get awarded cards through levelling or quests, you get new options and alternative options. For example the covert archer will level up having a larger chance of getting the scout card, the scout card can evolve into a mapping card, the edge and back of the card now represents a map, yes, we all forgot about the back of the card, but in a game, in a digital environment that side has options. And as the mapping option becomes available to select you see that mapping has benefits in the commerce side, especially if you gain art cards. There is still place for improvement (there always is) but when did you see a game that gave you CHOICES to evolve skills and adapt them in any way YOU could? I have been busting my mind and I saw no such options, not in ANY game and that is the power of versatility. It now becomes a side we never saw coming, but there is more.

What if I set that option aside like I did when I designed the Amazon Luna achievement keys? What if playing a game of chess allows you to gain the strategist card to apply to this game? It is just a thought but in that setting we get a stage that skill in one side enhances another? I do not think it is a great idea, but it could apply to cosmetic sides of the game. We could add a whole range of options. As we go forth we can also add cards, or evolve abilities with a black border (Covert only), white border (overt only) or gold border (commerce only), so kill shot would be covert only and if we evolve this over time the border becomes green, or brown and it an be applied to both covert or overt. And when we see this we can concentrate on higher end card, as they bolden all cards connected to them. In this there is one more stack, the homestead stack. As I state before we can influence to some degree, but if we add the homestead stack and we allow for levelling points to this stack the overall setting improves in town and that setting opens up a whole new range of options (and limitations). 

It is just one side of a game that is not ready yet, but consider who else has this and more important, which RPG allows for this? 

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March 26, 2022 · 18:45

Chaos on the brain

Yup that was me alright this morning. It started actually pretty good, I was enjoying some tea (yes I drink that every now and then), I was enjoying being in my bonnet and behold, a thought passed me by. It was a mix of Queen, a thought of Ted (the teddy) and things started to click. You see, when I grew up (a really long time ago) I got my hands on some Flash Gordon comics and the mix started to rattle. 

I loved it, it was just different. So I was a fan before Queen, Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson decided to have a go at Max von Sydow. I loved the music, the movie all because the comic woke something up. Even nowadays, I miss the comics, I can still enjoy the Queen album (they truly outdid themselves) and the movie was for a 1980 movie quite enjoyable. But something was missing. You see, now we have the streamers and they could transform the original comics into something dark, gritty and closer resembling the comics. Who? I have no idea, but Amazon, Hulu and Netflix should seriously consider it. No matter who wins, if they can make it truly dark and more resembling the comics, they could have a large win on their hands, merely my point of view. Nothing more. So whilst that process started chaos came knocking on my display. It was Hogwarts Legacy (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZmuZNu5LA) and it blew me away. Not by a little either. Even now as I am still enjoying Horizon: Forbidden West, I cannot stop thinking of what Avalanche Software has set in motion. What I saw was unique and flawless.  I plays a century before the Hogwarts we know and it works out that way. Yes, we recognise parts, we see things and creatures from all kind of places, but there is so much new to be seen, so much art in nearly every screen that I believe that on view alone, it will drive millions of Harry Potter fans insane with the need to get this game. Yes, I heard about the critique, I cannot say how I feel as I avoided (intentionally or not) most of the information as it was too far from release date. So whatever goblin issue there was the clip I pasted was my first introduction to the game and it looks utterly stunning. So even as some will say, I saw that. I avoided the 2018 leaks, I see no need to get hung up on something 4 years before release, and I still believe that. I saw some teasers that were released, and now some real stuff and this game could optionally set a new bar for many game developers. First Guerrilla, now Avalanche and Ubisoft cannot release anything to that level of gaming as I personally see it. Can you not see that Ubisoft is about to become a ‘has been’, like Microsoft (just a thought). So why the link?

I believe that any new IP, could be linked. Could transgress from comic to both games and series and here the path for Amazon becomes a lot more clear, but there is nothing stopping Netflix to seek an alliance with a real hungry and futuristic software house to unite and create both using one design and art team. There really is no need to reinvent the wheel and nowadays these wheels are a lot closer alike and a lot closer together than was the case in the past. 

In this fantasy and science fiction seem to be more easily adapted to both stages than others, but that is merely a personal view. And in this, what happens when you consider what games like Horizons: Forbidden West and optionally Hogwarts Legacy allows for. So what happens when the world of Flash Gordon become a much larger RPG styled game than ever before? It goes further than this. Consider Hansel and Gretel. Not the fairy tale, but the movie that gave us a bad ass Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton. Now consider the environment. Take Southern Germany, a map that maps Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in the 11th century. And the Black Forest is only a small part of Baden-Württemberg. Now consider what you need to do to become a famous witch hunter. And optionally the golden Emma Watson statue if you kill more witches than anyone else (no need to avoid humour, is there?) And consider the era, the first Crusades are in full swing, so there is an abundance of criminals and charlatans, there are corrupt officials and in that stage you will need to put your stamp. And it does not come easy. In the movie they had the weapons, but in this game you will not get far without the help and alliance of a really nice blacksmith and they only work for coins. We are so gung-ho about the kill-shot that we forgot that before we get to do that kill-shot a lot more needs to happen. Would it work? I honestly do not know, but in this day and age, the larger entertainer and the larger holder of a unique piece of IP has a much better chance than all others. Guerrilla showed that and believe it or not, I believe (from what I saw) that Hogwarts Legacy is on that same track. Avalanche did something really good and I cannot wait to find out. And if I had to choose? I honestly do not know. I would look forward to all three games and it has been a while since more than one game was on my list. At present HFW is just so fulfilling, it is almost scary. 

But that too is part of gaming, the anticipation and finding out that it was well warranted, Ubisoft used to be like that, but now it seems the new software makers are on that path whilst the old makers are exiting the stage on the left side.

Chaos is on my brain, but it comes from a weird mix of the old, the new and what might be, and in the stage of a place that now has more than 20,000 castles? I reckon that any witch would want one, so there is a reason to play this in southern Germany and there is no reason to think that the map is limited to merely there. In 5 years, no telling what systems are capable of in 2027/2028.

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