June 5, 2022 · 16:43

An apolitical setting

That is where I find myself. It comes from the BBC with the article ‘Ukraine anger as Macron says ‘Don’t humiliate Russia’’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61691816). I see the dangers, I see the anger and I see the fears. We are given “Ukraine’s foreign minister has hit out at French President Emmanuel Macron after he said it was vital that Russia was not humiliated over its invasion”, we are also given “Mr Macron has repeatedly spoken to Mr Putin by phone in an effort to broker a ceasefire and negotiations. The French attempts to maintain a dialogue with the Kremlin leader contrast with the US and UK positions.” Now we all feel that Russia needs to lose and the Ukraine has (for the most) clearly shown that, but the defeat needs to be worse than that. I am for the most on the side of the US and UK. Yet there is visible wisdom on the side of France. You see Russia might still at some point embrace ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’ and that is the danger setting. You see, if that pound is nuclear driven there is every chance that life in France will end, as will it all over Europe, the UK and the US. But for France the cost is larger. The top exports from France will be gone forever. It will start with end of the cheese and wine clubs. This might be seem trivial, but consider that this stage will end for ALL ETERNITY French wines and French cheeses. Yes, Sweden has good cheese, Wisconsin has good cheeses, as does the Netherlands. Good wines are allegedly found in California, they are found in Italy, Greece and South Australia as well as in New Zealand. Should this go South, it will no longer be available from France. So I get the stance of France. 

If we believe that the players could be swayed by political settings, keeping one open seems imperative. Yet the setting that defeat needs to be more pronounced is also essential. I feel that it is important that after September 30th it will no longer be allowed for Russians to hold property and/or businesses outside of Russia. They cannot have anything to say in non-Russian nations. When you consider the Russian billionaires in the field and their fortunes will be destined by yachting between Dubai and Russian territory their lust for life will diminish. The family of Russians  will not be allowed schooling and life outside of Russia. When this setting is seen over generations, we see the unrest that Russia faces. It will be a situation that goes far beyond Moscow on the Hudson. As such I to a point support the setting that President Macron sets with “Mr Macron told French regional media that Russia’s leader had “isolated himself”.

“I think, and I told him, that he made a historic and fundamental error for his people, for himself and for history,” he said. “Isolating oneself is one thing, but being able to get out of it is a difficult path,” he added. Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi has aligned himself with Mr Macron, suggesting Europe wants “some credible negotiations”.” Yet I do believe that there will be the essential need for a larger cost to the Russian people. I have had some issues with the economic assault on people like Roman Abramovich, but the time has passed and they have (for the most) not spoken out loudly enough against the acts of the Russian state, its acts in Ukraine and it gets to be worse. The recent burning down of the All Saints Skete of the Holy Dormition Sviatohirsk Lavra in the city of Sviatohirsk, Donetsk region is merely one of the most visible settings and there needs to be a price to pay for all Russians. So to some degree I side with President Macron, but that setting is not sailing when we give a pass to certain people after the war. That much WW2 has shown us a little too clearly. So whatever comes next, Russia needs to realise that the invoice is due and it will be staggeringly high, higher than the one Germany was given on 28 June 1919 in Versailles. We can flicker over the treaty required that Germany pay financial reparations, disarm, lose territory, and give up all of its overseas colonies. We can also look at the simple setting that in that same treaty they were given the limitations of

  • The German army was limited to 100,000 men.
  • Conscription (forced army service) was banned; soldiers had to be volunteers.
  • Germany was not allowed armoured vehicles, submarines or aircraft.
  • The navy could build only six battleships.
  • The Rhineland became a demilitarised zone.

In Russian terms it means that they will be limited to protecting the China-Russia border, because the setting will play after this one. And controlling that much area with 6 ships? Good luck with that idea. Optionally only 5 as they lost another one in the Ukraine. As such I reckon that the Russian oligarchs will sell whatever they have and quietly live out their days in places like Dubai. It is not a given, merely a speculation.

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June 4, 2022 · 17:58

Two populations, both disregarded

This was on the forethought of my mind. I was aware of one group, but until last night I was unaware of the second one. I never disregarded them, I merely never looked that way, I never considered this group in any way. It was not malice, it was not intent. It was merely the stage I found myself on. Just like some will never listen to some radio stations. Some are unaware, some merely do not care about radio, as such is the second group malicious? Is there intent? No, there is not and there I find myself. My third IP bundle was worth a penny or two, but I never considered that its valuation would surpass $2,000,000,000 optionally approaching way too close to $3,000,000,000. Now this sounds fine in many eyes. Yet the setting is that the first payment for Amazon is a mere $50,000,000 (post taxation). And that is where it stays. You see the second payment gets me 10% of sales and IP value. I set it to that degree so that I et a fair share, yet I never considered that the first and third bundle would go towards the 5B mark. That gets me way more than I ever considered or hoped for. I was merely looking for a (very comfortable) retirement setting, owning that much was not planned and now I find myself in a bit of a quandary.

You see, I believe in the axiom of overestimation, its dangers and optional the delusional side of it (on me), and it made me remember a sales term “Commission-based structures can lead to problems with motivation. While the possibility of extra compensation might excite employees temporarily, it may not motivate them over the long term.” The same can be said for service minded staff, but it is not exactly the same. There we get “Income-based structures can lead to problems with creative motivation over time. While the possibility of a bonus might excite employees temporarily, it may not motivate them over the long term. More important, the promise of a golden calf tends to make service people anxious, distrustful and optionally delusional” that’s where I find myself. The anxious side is there because the parts that mattered the least are now valued well above what I imagined it ever would. Distrustfulness is there, because I do not trust myself. I presently question every number I have, all the calculations add up and I have done them  half a dozen times in the last 24 hours. And lastly the delusional side is that I fail to believe in me. I am good, but to be shown that I am THAT good is folly. It is believing that I can walk on fire, even though I know that the fire would burn me to a crisp. This is not some setting of mind over matter, which is basically the setting that I do not mind, as I do not matter. It also gets me the setting that I cannot believe that Amazon and Google are seemingly on that page yet. A station that seems too crazy to seriously consider. So I go back t the drawing board. Where did I make the calculation error? And every time I do, I get the same results and I see additional supporting sides to it all. 

At times we need to believe in ourselves and we must above all believe that we can fail, at times failure propels us, that I can agree with, but to see that I got ahead by players like Amazon and Google 4 times in a row is just weird, but here you have it, a setting of contemplated failure on one side and the idea that I am due 10% of several billions is a weird station, and I get there by enabling two populations, so how come I am sitting here alone contemplating why others cannot see what I do?

I am at a loss of words and thoughts at present.

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June 2, 2022 · 03:56

Local norms

This happens we attend or tend to adhere to “something that is usual, typical, or standard”, there is no hidden trap here. Or so I thought for the longest of times. I saw the sign outside the supermarket “Only with Face-mask are you allowed in this place”, so I adjusted my norm. However, I made a mistake, apparently the rest of the clothing was not optional. So with only a face-mask I still did not get in, silly me.

So when I saw the news ‘French restaurant in Saudi Arabia bans hijab, causing outrage’ (at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220526-french-restaurant-in-saudi-arabia-bans-hijab-causing-outrage/) I wondered what possessed the restaurant holder to set the stage towards: “last week and early this week to have prevented the entry of women who wear the hijab and the abaya, the loose-fitting robe worn by women in the Kingdom. Men who wear the traditional thobe – or long robe – were also reportedly banned from the restaurant” Let us be clear. This was in SAUDI ARABIA, an Islamic nation that has (decently) strict rules on clothing and behaviour. As such Bagatelle Jeddah is not given a long life. And it seems that this is what happened. I cannot respond to “the restaurant had been heavily criticised by many due to its “tasteless” and bland food.” As I never ate there. There is also “a social media user named Ameera Al Qahtani, for example, said it “does not deserve any star. Because it refuses to allow women [wearing] the hijab, and refuses the Saudi dress for men. They need to be kicked out of Jeddah. They don’t respect our religion, and this makes me very angry.”” It seems that there is more playing, more under the populous I mean. It comes to a point at the very end where we are given “It is the most recent example of concerns regarding the societal tensions resulting from the clash between Saudi society’s conservative values and the new era of liberalisation encouraged by the Saudi government to cater to tourists” To be honest, I saw the disgusting ‘catering to tourist’ setting on Crete (Greece). The orthodox church has rules. But tourist consider themselves above that, why? People should not go into a church without proper attire (more than a tank top), I do not get it, if I were to go to Saudi Arabia, I know I have to adjust, I need to adjust to Islamic settings. Isn’t that why I go see another nation? And there are reasons to go there. The grand mosque in Riyadh is stated to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. There is the Kingdom Centre and Riyadh has several other places that people would want to see. If you cannot afford the trip (I am on that list too) there is a YouTuber named Jason Billam Travel who created some awesome videos of walking trips of Riyadh. And I got to see a little more than I bargained for, showing me jut how little I know of Saudi Arabia, but the western press is not really about informing us, are they? So (at https://www.youtube.com/c/JasonBillamTravel) you can see the Video of Riyadh (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk_4wPK6oks) where you can see more than you bargained for. There was another video which I could not find but seek “Riyadh Walking tour” and you will see jut so much more (if you cannot afford to go there).

Places like ‘Boulevard Riyadh City’ that shows me how little I know of Saudi Arabia, how little we are shown of Saudi Arabia, why is that? And lets be clear, we are visiting THEIR nation, it is an islamic nation, so we know we will have to adhere to certain differences. There will always be a debate of what we expect and what is tolerated. But a nation does not changes norms to us, we adhere to the norms of them. That is expected in London, Paris, New York and why not Riyadh? I just realised that the idea I gave here months ago (Augmented reality) might also work really nice in Riyadh too, but about that another day. I get that there could be a setting of “the new era of liberalisation encouraged by the Saudi government to cater to tourists”. Yet in all honesty. At present I hav e no idea what the opposing side “Saudi society’s conservative values” are. Yet consider in the US. Do they not adhere (to some degree) to the rules of the Amish? Do the Amish have rights? So why would you deny these rights to Saudi Arabia? Are their values and norms mine? I doubt it, I was brought up somewhere else. Yet I would want to visit it, see the places with my own eyes, as such I will have to adjust that is the rule in India, in Greece, in Egypt and as such in Saudi Arabia too. Is that not why you visit places? To see the sights and feel the brush of culture in that nation? If not then like me most can do with YouTube to show us the way. And the more I see, the more I consider what is any norm, the weirder the setting of Bagatelle Jeddah becomes. Now, I will accept that we do not see both sides, but the idea to attack a national norm in that nation seems like the most stupid ways of suicide, but that might just be me.

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June 1, 2022 · 19:04

IP that might be useless

Yes, that happens too. We all think we have the idea of a lifetime (and I have had a few), but there are the ideas that are subject to reality, or better stated, they offer an idea to question reality. That does not make the idea worth anything, beside the option to consider new IP in ways that the writer (me) did not consider for a few obvious reasons. 

One such idea I discussed earlier, I had it as an idea (not IP) but the setting to use it to ask questions is actually stronger. You see, the NSO group called a few things into question. One of these questions is the lack of security from most Android and iOS devices. The NSO group created a solution that both are not able to counter and even as they both point fingers, no one is seemingly able to ask the question “Why is this not more secure?” As such I came up with a new kind of mobile, a new approach to communication. It is not actually new, it is decades old. In the old days the police walkie talkie had crystals, and as the system went over these crystals, the conversation went over a few frequencies. Now this is old technology, we get that. But consider the image below

A setting where we have a mobile with three frequencies (not shown), one with 5 and one with 7. The 5 has four options, a-e, e-a, a,c,e,b,d and d,b,e,c,a. That phone would use 5 channels, all 5 transmitting, one real, the rest alternating kinds of noise. And as the phone changes (in call) between the four options the call is close to unbreakable. At this point, only state players would be able to get to the call (with a lot of hassle and loads of conversation loss). The setting becomes a lot more complex if the mobile provider adds its own hassles to the phone. I would delusionally call it ‘True Security’ it has two factors and only if both factors are known one has a chance of hacking the conversation and the 7 channel one has at least 4 more options, as such it is a no-go for most players. And this matters, how much would you pay for secure calls? Me? Not that much, I have nothing that require that level of security, but tech companies, lawyers, accountants, Wall Street, the list goes on and they will pay loads for true security. Big Tech are all about getting more out of a cheap solution (Google, Apple, Samsung) but the times are changing. At present a player like Blackberry could get a decent share in todays market. In a stage where all say it isn’t possible, the innovator will get the last laugh and there is every chance that such solutions will be required. Generic mobile IP is running its last course to some degree. The people they want will demand real change and preferable with hundreds less zero day defects. So is my solution the bang for buck? I doubt it, but there is a setting that is evolving and these people will seek cheap solutions first and when they agains get hacked by students and organised crime someone in a place like Wall Street will shout “Get me a real solution or you are done for!” And at that point big-tech wakes up realising that there setting of cheap and easy profit is over. Will I be proven correct? That depends if the Ukraine issue resolves itself I doubt that changes will be made, but if that escalates, it will be about resources and know how and that is when someone takes my idea and innovates the mobile phone. There is no other way that will play as I presently see it. 

It is just my view on the matter. 

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May 31, 2022 · 19:43

9 options were lining up

Wow! I got some feedback from yesterday, mostly from people who want a free ride and had no idea what they were watching. The sudoku part is a handlebar, an optional shortcut to a much larger stage that was a puzzle and I turned it into an almost simple exercise. But for the Microsoft minded (the non thinkers) lets go over it.

Story
No matter what the story is, there are plenty of elements that can be generated. It’s like creating 180 unique chapters and you only need 9 of them, basically you might create 81 at launch time and get the others created whilst the program is running. Yet getting the 180 (or so) done beforehand makes lighter work afterwards. You see, any story is set to chapters, each chapter is set to paragraphs. So why this many? In case you want a never ending start of quests, you need the ammunition. 

No matter how clever you are, there is always another way and I merely presented one. In the previous image you saw the stage of what story to run, it HAS to start with ‘1’, so whether you take the row or the column, you will have one of each. In my example the blue one is less appealing as the second number is an ‘8’, so it will be a lot less in line. The green one (a coincidence, I swear) gives us 1,4,5,7,2,6,8,9,3 so there is more line and per location you will get one part of the story (via interactions) and the story will shape for the player. So after the third world the player will have parts 1,4 and 5. This is one of the effects of anachronism and linearity is utterly pointless in that setting. And as we realise that we have 150 chapters, we merely randomise the chapters, we sort them and select the 9 highest (or lowest) and as such you would have to play the game 20 times to see EVERY story at the earliest. 

Items
This is a different setting. Let’s state that all the items are the numbers (another use of the SAME numbers). So all the items for world 1 are all the ones in play, but not every world needs to have 9 items. And you might want to focus on what numbers are in play, but remember, each number is only used once, so the Sudoku method HELPS us to shape what we want, but it is not a solution for everything, and every sudoku is different. 

We have Items, people, the story, the location puzzles and the whole comes to a point when we unite them. A new version and a unique version of a game that started in 1988, and with the Forgotten city we are optionally breathing it new life. The Sudoku part is just a handlebar to create a station of almost never ending originality. Especially when you realise that there are “6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 possible solvable Sudoku grids”. I used a simple way to create in simplicity what too many will try to complicate. Not a bad hour, was it? 

And this can be done on the streamers, it can be done on a PS5. I reckon that this is also possible on the Nintendo Switch. All this and all done in the limit of a TV show. Can life get any simpler? Well yes, but that is up to Adobe (for a price) and I think I have a nice idea for them to really screw up the margins of profit for Microsoft (because that is how I roll). And now it is time for a healthy meal (chicken rolls). 

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May 30, 2022 · 21:41

Three IP’s to make a fourth

That is what I contemplated today. I got a little bit lucky. 2 PS5 titles for $30. A good deal to say the least. The first one was the Forbidden city.

When it was released I was on a budget (a tight one) I had seen some parts on YouTube, saw some reviews all positive. The story is (as far as I got) captivating, but something was nagging at me, nothing negative. Merely the setting that once played, that is it. That is how most games go and there is nothing wrong with that. But what if it was not the end? It reminded me of a game I had on the Amiga. It was a Psygnosis title named Chronoquest.

I’ve forgotten most of the game, but this one got me back to those days. Travelling through time, finding clues to the real killer of your father. It made me think. That kind of game is now outdated, but the idea might not be. So when we think of Sudoku, we might remember the simple grid of nine, making horizontal, vertical and diagonal add up to 15. 

Most people learned quickly that the centre needs to be the ‘5’, then it becomes a simple setting of making the other 2 squares add to 10. Yet Sudoku gives us 9 grids of 9 and now it becomes a challenge, even more so when you realise that there are more options than most people can throw their hat at.

So what happens when we take the first game as an engine and create 9 levels. There are so many options. Greek, Roman, Goth, Spanish, Japanese, Scandinavia, Aztec, Mayan, Native American, and that list can go on for a while. Now we create the objects that are required, the stage is set, but this is not merely a whodunnit, this is a larger stage, but with a Chronoquest setting, we merely added steroids to the equation. Then we add an omnibus of storylines and we connect them. Like the Sudoku, we have 9 levels, but the numbers can be anything, and it is that seeding that gives us the options. Consider Chronoquest, places in time, that also implies anachronism, objects in the WRONG tine. It opts for dialogues, it opts for puzzles and if done correctly there will always be the chance that something has been seen before, but if every time has dozens of objects, we end up with 200+ objects The storylines need to be generic, like a dozen stories per time, yet the names can alter, the objects alter and the puzzles will alter. 

Time to fly
Now consider the larger sudoku. We could set the sequence of where we go by the centre square (as an example) so we now get 1,1,3,5,7,7,8,8,9 Now we get the tricky side, how do we enable area 2,4, and 6? Simple, the first double up (1,1) will open all 3, so now we get a puzzle that is slightly more challenging and not linear. The nice part is that 1 through 9 can mean anything and there are dozens of Sudoku creator scripts out there, all ready to be used for the eager maker of puzzles. I merely wonder whether anyone considered this application. Now do not let the style of writing fool you, this will still be a challenge making it and it will be subject to redraws, redesigns and back to the drawing board moments. But when solved, the maker will have a new style of game, a new IP and one that streamers will fight over to get, because replayability will be the streamer scream of 2024. When they learn and find out what the power of ACTUAL long term gaming is, they will get on board fast. So that took less than an hour and even now my mind is trying to implement a new side to using the Sudoku routine without making the game flat or predictable. And it needs to be able to redesign the new game with every matrix created, because that is the foundation of Sudoku, a unique number matrix. 

So look out for what is next and look to what YOU could make to become the next game maker all the others want. 

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May 30, 2022 · 00:29

Creating economic sides

Yes, we saw the optional impact of inns and sustenance. We were given the impact of the smith, and some sides. But how to control them? 

Well that is the first part, we do not control them, the cogs set some form of balance, like tables but with cogs we have less issues. We have slightly more control (or seemingly so), but the setting is an adjusted form of tables. We need no tables, we need the cogs to adjust seesaws and create a foundation of balance. This is hard to put into words and even as the foundation is set to credits, we need second seesaw creator that turns the credit value for each store into goods. This needs to apply for the jeweller, the bookstore, the smith, the general store and so on. I believe that it is like some form of chess assessor. Low value goods, medium value goods and high value goods. There is a side that we learned in school. For example 237 is 2*3*7(33), 28 is 2(2)*7, so how could we translate that into goods? I am still working on it and when we have that, we know what was left, we also know what the location has as revenue, this translates into town welfare. This welfare needs to translate into a balance for the town and a residual that translates into a positive or a negative. The negative pushes the location down, the positive lifts it up. The trick it to stay close to the seesaw balance. Too much into either direction turns places into ghost tows, or over lively places of expansion. I reckon it takes a real mathematician to set the stage for it to work, but the benefits are decently overwhelming so I need to create a way for this to work and it needs to work before we unleash the stories. The stories need to test the seesaw balance, it can flip a little, but it cannot take control, that is the challenge at present. 

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May 29, 2022 · 14:45

Music and sustenance

In continuation of the previous two articles. It is time to set a larger scene. In the first we talk about sustenance. You see there are always food places in RPG games, yet until Monster Hunter, I never saw any of these games take advantage of the sustenance factor. In this I got to thinking.

In the first, the levels of that. As I see it there are coffeehouses, taverns, Inn’s, restaurants, and as such we get to the basic setting we see below. As you might understand, you cannot have a village with a 4 star (or larger) sustenance place. And some places could get an upgrade. The upgradable settings are furniture, sustenance, and lodgings. Taverns can only upgrade sustenance and furniture. Sustenance are upgraded by getting that place a cook, it gets you a 20% discount for the rest of the game. Cooks can be upgraded by getting them a cookbook. Furniture can be upgraded by getting them better furniture and it gets you a +20% discount for the rest of the game. And the setting for the upgraded places is what I wrote earlier. In towns the production goes up, happiness goes up. It has all kinds of long time benefits for the gamer and the gaming area. Then we get another benefit, its benefit is temporary, but larger. You see in the old days the minstrel (bard) could invigorate the area. But the bard can only be in certain places. Restaurant/inn with terrace (as such it would have a podium), and there is an upside in that area. 

It is one of the benefits of the cog system. It showed me the ideas and the benefits of a larger stage, it brings the larger stage to the player and stops the person from being the centre of attention. The player still gets to set the tone in places, set the upgrades. But the larger stage will become the populous and the economy, stages where the player is a simple small factor, not the staging agent. And as we consider that the minstrel can be upgraded (2-3 upgrades in total) we need to make choices. A setting most RPG games tend to avoid, we can do it all, but it takes away replayability and sets the stage for blanket actions and grinding. That are things we can avoid to some degree and we get aa better game because of it. 

Consider that the minstrel can be upgraded 2-3 times. The clothing, the instrument and the music. Then we see that these are extremely limiting items. Like 2 outfits, 1 instrument and three pieces of music at the most. Who will you upgrade? One minstrel completely, or three minstrels partly? All choices we have to make. We could even adjust the music to the max of the highest minstrel, or the level of the minstrel in your home town. All parts that shape a game, all parts that make a game more desirable to the gamer, because a game that shapes in different ways, a game that gives more than one option and makes it replayable, that I a game that will be cherished for a long time and streamers will need long term interest in a game, it is their margin of profit on a large scale. And in this article I am merely scratching the surface of what is possible.

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May 28, 2022 · 22:35

Tally part two

Straight into the deep we go. Breathe in, hold your breath, dive.

Commerce
I wrote most of the foundation in ‘The stage of commerce’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) but not all, the foundation is larger than what I set there. I did it some time ago, but the article came to mind on February 25th 2022. Yet over the last few months I also reconsidered other parts. I stated “In the past I already discussed bookshops, taverns, and smith. We need to include goods and foods. This gives us the shops we need as a bare minimum, and considering the size of any area (in the past shops were seen in larger towns and anyone within a distance came to this place). So we now have the larger stage, and the people in that area add to this commerce.” But the world is larger than this, even if we base it on a 17th century fantasy premise. The cogs tend to simplify the setting, but does not change the dimension and that is what we need. But I feel that additional cogs to prevent the game from falling short. We can all rejoice into tables and the setting for armour, weapons, groceries, food, general items, books, jewels, taverns, masons and the list goes on. There are the cogs that drive 1:1, and the others tend to set the equation 1:2, 1:3, 2:1, 4:1. It is the balance that they set that keeps the game going and the more balanced that is, the longer the attention span the gamer gives it, and that I part of the equation. You can run from quest to quest like some set it, raid after raid and a quick trip to the stores to exchange equipment to coins. The one needs to be prevented, the other needs to be dismissed. The first element was discussed yesterday, by altering the concept and the kind of loot you find, the larger your benefit is in the beginning of the game. As the game progresses we get quarries and mines. The mines might make some of the requirements go away, but not all. As you get into the need of silver weapons, gold for enchanted jewellery. That gave me the idea to add Platinum as a source (it started with an engagement ring, but that is another story and she does not know it yet). But Platinum added a few other options, a few I had not considered before. So as we can find every mine EXCEPT Gold or Platinum we can create a handle on some parts of the equation. Then the idea goes from one side to the other. 

Towns
These are all over the place in many games, there we see villages, towns and optionally cities. This is how it has been, but the setting that we see villages and towns, they support farms, abbeys, convents, and keeps. Keeps have a more central setting in my mind, Keeps are supported by towns and cities, but the distance of a keep allows a town to BECOME a city. That is the larger setting, people can contribute to the creation of a city, but cannot push it. One person does not make an economy, people do, so I had to consider the setting where people are the foundation towards creating a city and even as the player you set the domino stones to get it done, I need a stage where (at least) 10% is out of our hands. I believe that the cog system does work and it works beyond economy, it could be the balance setter for entire games, not to manage it, but to set is as a setting of checks and balances. A setting where we can test the game in its true potential and that is essential. Streaming RPG’s are basically new, they might be based on old games, but the moment the makers realise what else is possible, they will run to what more they can get. They will make their games merely larger but not better. The deeper I dive into creating the next RPG, the more I see that another system is required, another pattern is required and in this I came up with the cog system. It is not unique, it is not the only way that it can go, but it is the way I designed it to go. I personally believe in the cog system. It is flexible, it an be adjusted and tailored to any specific situation or need and that is the foundation towards creating an RPG, is the cog model too small, we can add a cog, we can move cogs to be connected, it is a foundational choice. I believe that for me it is the best choice. For you? You will have to make up your own mind on what works for you. 

Four elements towards any RPG, towards any new story that gives life to a dynasty of gaming, it is time we prepare for the next stage of gaming, whether it is Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, PlayStation 6. We need to prepare what what comes next, not for the 10 year old game that we can play again, even if it was a really good ride. 

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May 27, 2022 · 23:17

First tally of thoughts

After yesterday’s article, I started to make a tally of what the game ‘has’. In the first there was the article ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which had a run down of a lot. But that rundown was not enough. There was the search ‘Lawlordtobe + RPG’ which gave me a lot more of what I wrote (and weirdly enough at least one story I forgot about). The basics are covered. In the basics there is the map, the character and the story. In the deeper run, the map is also covering the environment, the economy and the map itself (which is an environment, challenges and spiking of the map).

Spiking
Spiking is an early term I had. Like in places like Skyrim and Oblivion, there is a lack of caves, ruins and other places. So we spike the map to have these places. Yet the maps to some degree have an approach to caves (and some look really good) but as I personally see them unnatural. There are two problems with my train of thought. Caves are set in stone (literally so), as such they are part of the permanent map. Some places have way too many ruins and these ruins are a weird  form of small. But the idea of some ruins are a good thing, yet how to employ them? 

Brush and thickets, Fallen trees, Hollow trees, Evergreen trees, Rock formations, Rock overhangs, Caves, Low landforms and high landforms. Some are for single opponents, some are for groups. Ruins are a side here. They tend to be a good place for groups. But the setting needs to be natural (or as close as natural as possible). If there is a ruin, there was a reason that the building was there before it was a ruin. And not always is it a castle or a keep. But spiking is a dangerous setting. There is a danger of making it a place of convenience, and that is dangerous for the game. 

As we look into the economy I saw the dangers of ‘loot’ in the game. In some game we enter an old (really old) place, but it has the most modern of ‘loot’. So we redefine what loot is. broken swords, daggers, broken shields, old coins, chains. Elements that can be reforged into metals, old coins (copper, silver, gold) that can be set into metals. Yes there will be chests with actual new(er) stuff. Like groups of brigands, they have bounty, they have conquered stuff (that needs liberating). It will not be about wealth. In one RPG I had 300K, so in what living form of delusional would an adventurer have this much money? Too many RPG seem to value credits as an indication of achievement. That too needs to change. 

I took examples from classical masters, from stories (the non-Robin Hood kind) and from historical events, but they need to evolve in RPG gaming. In the economy that side is merely a cog, but a cog that could evolve. Yet the station of evolution is a larger problem that I have not solved yet. I did like the nemesis system that we see in the Shadow of Mordor, but that was THEIR system, I need a similar but different system. This is to stop grinding, the stage where there will be spawning (one man’s ruin) is the next persons envy. But if the previous group was defeated, the next group will have better defences, and optionally one or two more brigands. There are shelters for singular people and those people are sly a lot more like cutthroats, so no warning. All sides we see very little of in current RPG’s. All sides that are new in the RPG.

Stories
I gave more than one story start and that is central in any RPG, yet there is also the additional stage. You see there is no stage where we can do it all, play it all, live it all (the latter is a matter of debate). But the stories cannot be around you, around the player. The main quests yes, but the side quests need a larger setting than we are used to. There is a side that takes me back to Robert Ludlum’s Scarlatti Inheritance (I think), a local village event and a burial that is part of the story. So to set a side quest needs the seeding of a story all by itself that has several connections. There needs to be an intelligent part in this, so that stories can be written en mass and spread in the game, so that some side quests are not part of every game (another way to prevent grinding) and there we see that we need 50-150 side quests. That can intervene to a larger degree to the character that you play at that time. So far we see the foundation of an RPG that can be played on console or streamer. 

Then we get to the cogs of the economy, I spoke about them but I considered one additional set of cogs for each part. About that in the next story which will happen during my weekend.

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