March 25, 2021 · 03:33

The brain race

I am not sure how familiar you are with the ‘race brain’, yet mine went nuts two hours ago. It was a set of circumstances, the first was Dragon Quest Builders 2, I restarted the game only to fall over on the second island (again). As I learned to ‘follow’ the orders nearly precisely I got a bit further, but I was thwarted by the game makers who got overconfident and that is where the wheels came off the car, or was it the train went of the rails? It is almost a crossing between a close question and an open question. If you confine yourself to closed questions, you tend to miss the desired direction, and when you confide in the response of open questions you go in EVERY direction, except the right one. It is a shame really, because the game (island 1) was heaps fun, you are in a stage where the second island seems fun but frustration sets in too quickly and you go nowhere, a game that relies on fun and delivers, at least the first 2 hours, after that it goes nowhere. But that set my brain in motion, or better stated it went into overdrive. As I was relaxing I looked at the new Hogwart Legacy trailer for PS5, within seconds my mind was devising all kinds of trails to make the game ‘better’, and I could not stop it. 

A game that I have not seen yet, I have not played yet and I am already trying to improve on it, 

In one part with an adaption (or DLC) that gives a setting that a group of four one in each house are linked, an idea that has links to an old WW2 movie, but the stage never left me and now it delivered something different. It seems a silly way to waste time, but my brain would not stop. My mind went on towards the stupidity of EA and their sport games. You see, I do not agree with some voices, Their packs are not gambling and I, for the life of me cannot understand why EA is not on the offensive. 

To understand this, you need to see the stage devised by Julius Caesar, I believe it was in De Bello Gallico, he stated that a soldier is in attack, in defence or awaiting response and each links to the other, as such the attack can move to defence or anticipation, defence can move to anticipation or take the offence and so on, as all three states are covered the soldier that can move between the three without pause and move from any stance to attack, that will be the winner. EA seems to be unaware of this option and seems to be between defence and anticipation only. It is a choice but it will be the stage that always and forever leads to losing. I came up with an idea to take the offence in this. Of course as all marketing costs, it might not be cheap but it beats getting slapped around by those giving voice to idiots spending $12K on packs for a $55 game, that is more than ludicrous and the media is eating it up, something they can flame and no one is asking the questions that matter, not even the legal department of EA, or at least they do it in a way no one can hear.

Even the Times gave us 3 days ago ‘YouTube stars ‘lure Fifa gamers into gambling’’ (at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/youtube-stars-lure-fifa-gamers-into-gambling-dwk8tcx3g), a stage that beckons response but it seems that EA remains largely silent. So as we get “The company behind the Fifa football video game has been accused of using “exploitative” marketing techniques to lure children into gambling”, so where is the response and the campaign by EA? I wonder where they are? You see, loot boxes are not gambling.

Why?
To call it gambling you need to consider that you lose your money, this would only happen if you buy a loot pack and the only thing you get one card stating ‘Thank you!’, but that is not the case. In my case (NHL19), I get a free pack every 8 hours, then each pack has also coins and a token, there are each month 3 packs that can be gotten with these tokens and they are three good packs. Beyond that you get non trade-able cards and the coins can be used to buy or bid for items in the auction part. When you hit a milestone (some small achievement, you also get options for packs and in some cases a specific player.

Within a month I had all 30 arena’s, all NHL home and away jerseys and in three months I also had all the NHL goalie masks and a ton of other stuff, I never spend a dollar on this. One site tells me that FIFA21 does not offer this, I am not sure about NFL21, so why not? It would solve all issues for EA. You see, people are staring blindly on the alleged gambling, but the stage of gambling is never truly properly investigated. You see when we gamble we see two options. The first is ‘play games of chance for money’, but that stage has the unwritten law that you can lose and this never happens, you always get cards, common, uncommon and one rare card. The second version of gamble is ‘take risky action in the hope of a desired result’, that part too is not met, because the desired result is always the same, one rare card, several uncommon cards and the rest are all common cards. This stage is not the one we consider because the outcome is always the same. What most people forget is that in FIFA 21 (allegedly) we see “30 official leagues, over 700 clubs, and over 17,000 players”, if that is correct, there is every chance that there are 2,000 rare players, which means that any rare card has a 0.05% chance of coming out, so if you want Messi, Beckham or Ronaldo you need to get really really lucky and lets face it, every club in the world wants these three players. But that part is close to never considered, and when we go back to the adult idiot spending $12,000 on packs, that person need to get his credit score adjusted to -15000. Is there an issue? Perhaps there is and I think that EA made a few blunders on several levels, but that does not make it gambling, and as we never see anyone receiving a pack with only a thank you card, the stage of gambling is, as I personally see it never reached. 

So how did I get there? 
Well my brain will not stop thinking things through in creative ways and it is reason for another case of insomnia. I watched the trailer of the Unholy (which looks awesome) and immediately my brain went towards a remake of Stigmata (a Rupert Wainwright gem), why? I have no clue, when my brain is in this mode it needs to run its course, which is keeping me awake pondering N+1 issues all whilst N was the maximum I could contemplate. So at present I am typing this whilst I am trying to calm down my brain by listening to the Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan). 

The creative brain can be a curse, not an unholy one, but a curse none the less. So whilst we see what is next my brain (overzealously) adapted Hogwarts legacy before seeing the final product, I considered a new version of Stigmata, I am still contemplating a backdrop for ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which at present is set in the Hague and Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Then there is the idea I had regarding ‘Keno Diastima’, here I believe they should nearly all be new actors, no famous people there, I will not say to much because the cliffhangers 2-3 and 3-4 will be brutal, which is how it should be. 

An idea came to mind on a prequel to ‘Soylent Green’ with Chris Hemsworth in the lead (almost 2 years ago), yet here I fear that the story is just not good enough, the setting is great but I feel that it would end up being some cult movie and not a real breaking movie, a stage that precedes near perfection is also a dangerous step to make and it could backfire in a horrible way, which is why my mind remains the great dangers. I considered the idea before (2019-2020), but I never figured out the part that matter, no matter how good the prequel is, the stage needs to go beyond something nice, and Richard Fleischer did set the stage in a phenomenal way. One can say it is like buying a raincoat to warn against the rain that has been going on for weeks, the flood will drown you long before the usage of a raincoat is validated. There are other idea’s and I wrote about them before, so I want to avoid repetition, but the stage will soon come that Hollywood will look in other directions for new idea’s. Outside of the Marvel and DC range and there have been so many really good idea’s, I merely wonder why that path was not traversed before by Hollywood, Bollywood or Nollywood. And as my brain is seemingly slowing down, I end today’s article and will try to get some sleep (one can dream, can one not?)

Consider the two sidelines that are hidden between the lines and contemplate why it was done, because there might be madness in my methods, but there is also methodology in my insanity, it is merely what we aim for and whether we realise what we were aiming for in the first place.

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March 23, 2021 · 21:16

The quest for tea

As we sit in the teahouse we wait for the visitor to come. There is a cup of tea in front of me and I take a careful casual sip, there is also a tea kettle in front of me. The house is empty, it is still early, the villagers will not come for a few hours, as such I am relaxed. I look at the room with merely an old man in the front, the caretaker of this establishment. As I take another sip I see the man relaxedly walk towards me. Hello [questor] he states. I look up at him and noticed him smile. It is getting late, you should try and sleep and his voice slows down even more, I want to react, but I cannot and my eyes close and everything starts to turn. 

It is already nightfall when I wake, the man is still in front of me, but I am somewhere else. He is asking me to relax, take a sip of this, it will waken you up more quickly, he takes a sip first and hands me the drink, it is cold goat-milk. He nods “I am the pottery master. You will learn a lot here. You were invited by a person who requires anonymity for now, yet I must train you. I accepted this, you will accept too, there is a lot to learn and it will take time” This is the intro to the first artisan quest line. The quest of the potter. Pottery is a lot more important in this RPG. Some clays will strengthen toxic properties over time, others will dull them, knowing which pot does what matters, some will inhabit the inner part of a wooden pot, others are flasks, but the ceramics matter. Toxic, healing properties van flourish in one kind and be lessened in another. Some ceramics can withstand heat others cannot; some are great to keep reagents in, others are not and there are rules for liquid and solid ingredients, you will learn them all. In nearly all cases your accuracy will improve and that is a direct result from the skills I will teach you. 

In this game and many others range fighters require accuracy (dexterity) and some arcane skills require that element to be higher, potter covers them all and it also allows you to make fire bombs, stink bombs, sleep bomb and much more. It is a natural progression and as you master this part you will be more apt in many departments. This part will rely on some of the historical ceramic sides we see. Celadon, Tang blue and white, Murano flasks, we will discuss and make them all, it will sharpen your skills and they need a lot of sharpening, let us begin.

This is merely the introduction of the first part, a stage that drives the next two artisan quest lines and you will have to make a choice, that makes the game enticing to play again and again and in the end you will leave your comfort zones a little more and you will desire RPG games even more, because the discomfort zone overcome makes for a much more fulfilling form of RPG, it is not what you are good at, it is where you become good that is where the challenge is faced, some RPG makers forgot about that and I want to rectify it. Consider all the RPG games you have seen, where was pottery a factor? We see alchemy and cooking, but we forgot that the cooking pot is also a factor and generalising that part got them a generic boost, but I am trying to fond a way to get a boost over the whole line. As pottery, masonry are added, we can tweak forging in another direction, one window closes and another one opens and when the player needs to climb out of one window, he might overlook the fact that the door was too generic a choice and now that player is in charge to set the stage of gaming, we can adapt the game to quite a different stage, one with short term benefits and long term costs, because not all choices are a plus, some have quite a nice collection of negatives, it is the total of the game offered that makes us a winner at the end of all those choices. and lets not forget, it is all to make a new and better PS5 RPG game, the others can fend for themselves.

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March 23, 2021 · 20:34

One view is not another

There was a scene and I took it in to some degree and I merely cast it aside the other. It was all about Meghan Markle, a lady who became Meghan, Duchess of Sussex after she married Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. I am for the most part a royalist, just like my grandfather was before me, the only part that is not equal is that he was British and participated in WW1, I did not. Yet, I remain royalist in nature. So when the interview was on, I avoided it, my reason was that for the most, I do not trust the media, they adhere to shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers and they will use whomever they can to achieve what needs to be achieved and for the most, they see royalty as cannon fodder for their cannons. Yet, I do not attack media people directly unless it is about a specific article, and for the most part that viewpoint is in my scope. So when Piers Morgan went the other way regarding the Duchess of Sussex, I merely shrugged, so many articles, so much media, there will be views on both sides of the field, it is unavoidable.

As such I went on my merry way, that partially changed after the show on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, when his remarks also set the stage for him leaving the show. So when we see ““Who did you go to?” he said. “What did they say to you? I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she said, Meghan Markle. I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report. “The fact that she’s fired up this onslaught against our Royal Family I think is contemptible“” I initially shrugged, the media will take one side or another, it is what the media does and whether this falls into their personal views is a matter of debate, there is little option for me to change my views, I have seen thousands of articles over the last 10 years and that is the stage I am stuck in. 

And then Amol Rajan (in the BBC article) gives us “There is a culture war going on, and Piers Morgan’s job on Good Morning Britain has fallen victim to it. That’s different from saying Morgan himself is a victim of it; in some ways he has been a beneficiary. But when the public position of a star presenter and a broadcaster’s CEO are in sharp contrast, about such a sensitive subject, at a time of such heightened tensions, something has to give. Tonight, it did.” In this take particular notice of ‘when the public position of a star presenter and a broadcaster’s CEO are in sharp contrast, about such a sensitive subject’ this is where we see that some stakeholders call the CEO, this is not about him versus him, this is an optional example of Piers Morgan versus THEM, them being the people who prefer that the UK becomes a republic, there is more easily made profits that way, that is how I feel. And this is not a new point of view, I have been warning about the media, their shareholders, their stakeholders and their advertisers for years and the people get to see that freedom of speech and freedom of points of view does not hold water when the CEO has an opposite view. And in reality ITV’s Good Morning Britain is not a news organisation, even if they mention that they bring the news, it is as I personally see it a ‘catering entertainment program’. And it seems that Piers Morgan in this case had enough.

It does not matter that I stayed away from the interview. We all know that Oprah Winfrey is an absolute master in playing on emotions, it made her very very rich and her dedication to her causes and how it inflamed Americans have made her even richer. Sincere dedication cannot be feigned, it can only be real, making her an even more precious commodity. 

So is Piers right or wrong? That does not matter, I actually do not care, but it was his view and there are plenty accepting his view and to those stakeholders that view is detrimental to their needs. In a stage where everyone is bitching about their right to speak, getting rid of the person not agreeing to your views is something entirely different, it is called censorship. What struck me is ‘Meghan Markle among the 41,000 people who filed a formal complaint against Piers Morgan’s comments’, you see when you look at the big picture, we see that this amounts to 0.06% of the population, we cannot get the BBC to give the British people the goods on what is actually happening in Yemen (the Iran involvement part), a setting that has caused the death of well over 100,000 people in a population of formerly set to 29 million, as such we are getting inflamed by the wrong numbers. It does not matter whether Piers Morgan is right or wrong, it was HIS point of view, as such the stage is calling for a lot more questions on the amount of stakeholders that ITV’s GMB at present has, this is how I personally see it, I will let you make up your own mind. 

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March 23, 2021 · 04:55

River of choices

We all have these moments where we contemplate things, you me, we all do. When I am in that stage I tend to play a game to clear my mind, let my subconscious work out what I cannot voice, most of us have a mechanic of sorts to work through this, and I am not different. As I was considering a game, I returned to Dragon-quest builder, on Switch, the second game. I never finished it, mainly because some of the quirks got to me. Let me be clear, I was talking about quirks, not bugs or glitches, although we can argue on glitches. I got the demo which gave us much of the first world and it enticed me, it was fun to play and the word fun os overbearingly important. A bad game is a bad game, a fun game is for the most never ever a bad game. It might not be a great game, some are optionally not good games either, but fun works out the kinks in your armour every single time, so now that I have worked through the kinks, I am going back to the game. You see, I have issues to work through, issues on the RPG my mind devised (and put online in these articles), yet I need to make sure it is about the game, there is no hatred towards Bethesda, lets be clear if you have a program (or a few) what would you do if you were offered eight point five billion? I would do the same. I have a natural disgust towards Microsoft, but that is on different grounds. 

So as I was playing Dragon-quest Builders, my mind worked out a few more settings in the RPG. The stage where you either build a house, or buy a house, a house is for most our most powerful possession, so let’s make it a house of power, a house of family and where you set it has benefits, no matter where you set it. Consider that Bethesda’s Oblivion, in your game you could own a house in Anvil, Bravil, Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrel, Imperial City docks, Leyawin and Skingrad. So how many friends do you have who have 8 houses? But what happens when the house becomes a stage of power? Not merely houses that have more or less (and therefor more affordable) power, but different kinds of power. To coin a phrase, in Greek terms, what if the house in Leyawin is blessed by Hades, as such a necromancer would have bigger abilities over time and more powerful as he is in his house more often, as such the child born there would have increasing benefits. But in this RPG there is no Hades, but the idea still sticks, and it was not done before, so enjoy adding that part in your Playstation exclusive RPG.

Yet it does not end there, houses is one part in ones life, the setting is what is added and it is important to be unique, or at least not as much as a copy of true originals as some others are. The houses are just the beginning, as we get into the game, the house itself will optionally be the giver of quests, which does not mean that all houses should be owned, you can at each time only own one and the quests will not come until the next generation is there (born in the house). There is also the stage where one third is some form of copy, so if there are 7 houses (random number), the 21 quests will be there, but 7 will optionally be a revisitation. It allows for replayability of a game, giving it a much larger stage to play, in all the game requires at least one replay as we have three generation and 5 arcane houses, and 5 mundane houses (still working on that), as such you cannot play them all in one play-through, as such there is the evolution of towns over three generations, so the game will be much larger, I had some sort of version in my initial view of Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration, but as they are now Microsoft, I can incorporate the few dozen ideas I had there to fit this RPG, so you have a lot more coming your way.

Consider a game with 5 main quest lines and dozens of side-quests. A station of consideration and in that river, we must make choices, if we listen to marketing we get the vile ‘This should be enough’ and ‘what if we copy that idea, it is easier to replicate’, and that is not false, but that is why the top 10 of best Ubisoft games are 1994 or older, that is 26 years ago. Personally that list is fine, but I would have places AC Origins in there at some point. Ghost Recon Breakpoint had 52%, Ghost Recon Wildlands 69%, games that should have been 85% plus games didn’t make it, why is that? A game that tries to appeal to all, will in fact please none. A lesson that Ubisoft never learned. And that is where I am not going, as such I am relying on a different course, to envision a different RPG that pleases all RPG lovers and if some want to take a leap there they are welcome. Yet some will not like it, they rely on racing games, FIFA and other games and they are welcome there, I wish them the best fun they can handle, and some are totally nuts about FIFA, I am more of an NHL player myself. We all have fantasies and mine is to be an NHL goalie (as sports go). So as I am taking a view on the mundane quests, the economic stage of the island, I want to set a larger stage of bartering, we al needs stuff and let’s face it, cola caps make for lousy food, so how to go about it? We can return to the age of Rome and get paid in salt, but I reckon that in most villages the need for hides and tools will outweigh the need for jewellery (but not always), so as I look into the stage of artisan quest lines I leave you with the thoughts I had. Do not consider out of the box thinking, throw that limitation overboard and make the consideration if my thought had to fit in a box, what shape would that box have?

It is just a thought to entertain.

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March 20, 2021 · 09:02

I need medication!

Yup, that is how I felt this morning. I am still reeling from the dream I had. Everything was OK when I went to bed last night, I was myself, I was working out new directions from the RPG I discussed in the last few articles, to coin a phrase ‘I was happy as a clam’, but then something happened, the dream changed, I was suddenly a co-pilot in an helicopter, nothing wrong with that, it had always been a dream to pilot a helicopter, something that happened after I saw Skippy, a fishbowl with a piece of fence at its tail and it could fly, it was almost magic (well, I was younger than 10, so that made sense). Yet, this was different, I have no idea what kind of helicopter I was in but the chopper was not the issue, my visor was. As we were flying low over canals and greens, I saw that the boats on the water became directional markers, like they were telling us in what direction to fly. If I focussed on a boat I could pick up the radio station and the information it was bringing. Crazy isn’t it?

To make sense, I need to take you back to the 80’s. There was a fab in those days, radio’s had a sort of enhanced METAdata part, so when a song was playing, you saw the band and the title in your display. It is almost like someone took that idea and put it on steroids, I cannot think of another explanation, what is more, I have no idea what my brain was working out. It is like someone figured out to hide more than a FoF (Friend or Foe) message in the radios broadcasting, with some cypher that gave the relevant information to any visor it faced. Yup, quite the ride and it went on for some time in my dream, the arrows had numbers, but the numbers made no sense to me, but to the co-pilot they made a lot of sense. They were following along the path of a canal with several branches, and the arrows were pointing along the canals they were on, several (not all) pointing in some sort of flight guidance setting. And then I woke up.

Yup, quite the ride, I had hoped to get a new chapter on the RPG written, my mind is still working on the 5 arcane quests, yet the other quests are now in another stage, one that is facilitating for the generation part of the game, like a multilevel dungeon with more than one boss, the idea is that the chests are markers in their own right, not merely a container holding loot, they are in part the loot too, consider the RPG games you played. All the times you see a lovely boss chest and you empty it, you go home and you put all that stuff in your kitchen drawer? Did no one wonder why you did not take the chest home? What if you can take any chest home, but you can only carry one chest? The chest becomes a focal point, a focal point that might have another clue, optionally one that only your son or daughter can solve.

It takes gaming to a new chapter, it takes RPG and treasure hunting to another leap of faith and treasure hunting, it seems to be something that Lara Croft might have overlooked, but with my knowledge of the VoC and their need for locked chest, one might consider that some locks (in more than one case, the key too) had their own purpose, a side some tend to forget, but the game doesn’t, the gamer thinks out of the box, some gamers are even wondering what a box is and that is where my thoughts come in handy, so as I am contemplating new ideas in how the chest becomes the clue, how the chest goes from cave container to a lovely piece of furniture in your virtual house, we consider what else can be altered, all things that some RPG makers did not stop to think of. A stage my brain is happy to dwindle on, especially after the weird dream I had, but I digress, you see a ‘Friend or Foe’ is more than that signal, we merely see it as some electronic thingamajig in a plane, but what happens, if we add functionality to it? What if the FoF becomes an individual cypher? I wonder if the boffins at DARPA had taken that thought and put it on a train, sometimes it is the game that gives premise to the larger stage. We know that some caterpillars become butterflies and some become moths, but what if we add the signal to a butterfly to increase its wingspan? It takes me back to secondary school where we were introduced in what would later be ‘radio ecology’, it was around the time that the old Hulk TV series had an episode on metamorphosis, the setting where Bruce Banner set a solution to turn a plague and made the devastating larva prematurely change into a butterfly, yet what happens when we take that premise and not make change, but to make it carry a marker, a marker we can read and the marker adds the counter where we can see when the pest becomes the harmless butterfly. 

It was not really a sidestep, what happens when we give added markers to any carrier, smartphone, radio, TV or whatever and we have a way of reading it? Let’s not forget that our devices are only used to a minimal degree, for the rest of the time they can do whatever it pleases. So what happens when we adjust the electronics to do just that? A population of millions, all carrying their numbers, and at times even more, as devices that have a multitude of options, at times it is not about who they work for, at times it can be to give the build in GPS and the ability to set a signal into a multitude of directions. So you might wonder when I take my medication, but when did you ponder the question on what else a mobile phone, a MP3 player or a radio could do? Jut like the chests in an RPG, what if we adjust that premise to facilitate the quest or the storyline? I might have flown about in a virtual helicopter, but I stopped wondering where I was going and contemplated where I could be going, not merely where I should go. A stage in gaming that too many players forgot about. 

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March 19, 2021 · 00:06

Mummy and Daddy

Yes, we know it, we lived it, but we never played that stance. We learned it in school, but I took a page out of the works of Gregor Mendel who gave us the foundation of genetics. So proud Sony developers, it is time to walk into the next level of RPG gaming. The one part that was forever an issue was that Bethesda had to set a stage of rewarding, per cave, per site and that was fine, but spelunking and tomb raiding are not always that rewarding (ask Lara Croft if you doubt me). So even as you started to play as a he or a she, which was your choice, what if we give some kind of a time limit, if you started early, you had a family, as such the partner becomes important, so when we go past the steamy sex part where she rolls like a horny vixen and you get ‘victimised’ towards creating the next generation, you get a choice will the next adventurer be a he, or a she and it is not just there, as the next generation is updated every visit you make, the partner (depending on what gender you are) also brings power to the mix. And that is where RPG have not gone before. So there is a social setting in the village, or wherever you are living, the successful adventurer has better chances, more options, and there the game evolves, as we make a choice if the partner is more artistic, some abilities evolve into the next generation, more arcane gives other choices more power and so on. 

So for example 

Partner’s job
Smith – Strength
Farmer – food as a resource
Artist – accuracy, mapmaking
Carpenter – woodworks, agility
Butcher – armour, meat, leather
Baker – Food, alchemy, arcane support
Textiler – Fabrics, accuracy, armour design

And the list goes on, the idea is to imbue the following generations with additional knowledge. A set of things that you might have ignored but are gifted to the next generation. 

It also requires a much larger stage on the game itself, what we see, how we look at something alters, and getting rid of the simple internet solutions is merely icing on the cake.

Consider what we consider that some golden quest can be found and completed by the first generation, but in many cases the golden quest gives us some treasure and a larger clue, it is up to generations 2 and 3 to complete them, it is basically, to some degree the end of the linear quest person, it is a stage never seen before and I believe that whomever makes that game to the degree we see will make that developer a nice future stage as a new larger development house, and as Micro$oft learns that they lost out again, perhaps they will take the word of gamers against that of business analyst claiming to be gamers. 

There is a set of choices and the idea is to have a game that encompasses three or four generations. The more fame, the more the town grows, the better their setting for gold, for shops and resources. We are so used to do it all ourselves, we forgot that some tasks are too big, and the family still gets there, if the father gave the right clues that the son (or daughter) can pick up on. A new style of RPG and when we add the previous parts that include the 5 stories of the arcane, the set stage of an island the size of New Zealand, which is a place one person cannot explore in one lifetime, especially on foot, as such we can play an avatar (demigod) with a decent level of immortality, or we increase the game in other directions, I decide to opt for option 2 and so far no other game maker ever has, so as Microsoft is playing the same card over and over again, I am offering this to the Playstation developers, to create something quite new, something gaming has not seen before and that is what gamers want, something that is new to them, whilst not upsetting the genre of the game, it will remain an RPG, an evolving RPG no less. A setting that was viewed in the first day, but I saw too much and it took time to digest all my mind created at the seed of light, I merely wonder when gaming gets to this place, because as cloud gaming goes, its power will be in long term gaming, optionally another reason why Bethesda was so appealing to Micro$oft. Too bad I am handing out these ideas to Sony developers for bobkis, what a lovely waste of $8,500,000,000, ain’t I a stinker?

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March 17, 2021 · 22:22

And then there was delusion

Yup, we all see it, we all recognise it, yet who has ever called on it? I know I do, but the list is getting smaller and fading as the news is absent in too many cases. As Reuters gave us ‘Major arms sales flat in 2016-20 for first time in more than a decade’ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-arms-trade-sipri/major-arms-sales-flat-in-2016-20-for-first-time-in-more-than-a-decade-idUSKBN2B60QD), it is my believe that some might overlook “three of the world’s biggest exporters – increased deliveries, but falls in exports from Russian and China offset the rise”, which is interesting as those three nations include USA, France, Germany, all whilst Germany, UK and US have been in a spin to not deliver to Saudi Arabia, losing them billions in sales, sales that China is working hard to deliver on. In addition there are voices that give us that the US was in a WYSINWYG stage (What you see is not what you get) in the last year, and the buyers are taking notice. As the arms industry is trying to find appeal and aspiring new technologists for their arms industry, all whilst I had an Ice-coffee and a sandwich and I rolled out a new solution to sink the Iranian fleet, it’s all in a day’s contemplation. So whilst we are trying to make sense of “The United Arab Emirates, for example, recently signed an agreement with the United States to purchase 50 F-35 jets and up to 18 armed drones as part of a $23 billion package. Middle Eastern countries accounted for the biggest increase in arms imports, up 25% in 2016–20 from 2011–15. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest arms importer, increased its arms imports by 61% and Qatar by 361%”, we see the absence of the Saudi blockade of goods by the US Congress, something that China is soon to be rather happy about. And as we see the numbers ($23 billion) for the UAE alone, my reflection on the amount approaching $7 billion for Saudi Arabia does not seem that far fetched, does it?

So whilst we get to the end of the message handing us ““For many states in Asia and Oceania, a growing perception of China as a threat is the main driver for arms imports,” said Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI, said” the part avoided is that the non-sales by Germany, the UK and the US is driving their sales, and it does not stop there. Even as the filtered information bringers are giving us the golden newslines on Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, there is a larger stage to consider. It is my speculation (which means absent of factual data) that the arms driven pie slices will decrease as the slices for the US, Germany, UK and France will add up to 10%-19% less, whilst those shares will largely go to China. I believe that the increase in Russia and China will be roughly 30% and 70% of the total amount lost by other parties. There is every chance that players like Saudi Arabia will try to get a deal with both, but that remains speculation at present. This is information that is partially out in the open, as such I wonder what the drive of Reuters was, perhaps it was as simple as giving the limelight to SIPRI. The stage that the UK is mentioned to increase its nuclear platform is taken out of the equation, it is for the most a buy once, go nowhere solution that has 1-2 specific vendors, but that out in the open after the laughingly deceptive Iranian story (at https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/iran-reveals-underground-missile-city-as-regional-tensions-rise.html), yes they might have something, but apart from the concrete bunkers, the footage showing 100 missiles (twice), do they actually work or are they defence movie props? The dozens of launchers next to one another, are they real, or are they faulty equipment? Answers that cannot be given and the sources giving us answers might not be that trustworthy, but it happens at the same time that SIPRI is shouting that arms sales are down, it is one way to start a fire sale with increased prices. So consider the timeline and feel free to wonder whether I am the delusional one, or the other players. I know a few have seen me as the delusional party and I have no issue with that, I give you the links, and for the most I hand the information that you can decide what is real, but in all this, who gave us any indication of looking at the Iranian video handing out any expected clarity on how real it was and when does Iran give the goods on their military? Is anyone looking into that part?

Have a fun day!

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March 17, 2021 · 06:59

Somniare atque in posterum

It was a weird dream, even as nothing really weird seem to happen, the dream was weird. It was my first day at Sony, I was given a cubicle. A man spoke to me ‘We liked how you responded to your previous boss’, even as I have no idea who or what response they were talking about. There was a start package on what seemed to be my desk. There was a new watch in 4 parts. It seemed an almost identical fit to the Apple watch, but it was something we had to put together. There was the housing, the band, the battery and the electronics. It was an employee watch. The electronics were specific Sony, the rest generic. The watch kept us informed, seems to keep the company informed of our every action and it was the lifeline of the employee. A future I predicted in 2013, but not to this degree. Patents fuelled to generalisation, to set parts into a stage of some sort of jigsaw combining and partial usage made no difference, the patents caught it all. From mass produced straps (mine seemed like a transparent cheap looking plastic, but tough and resilient. The housing was a generic product, like it was made to fit a million users and the electronics were specific, it gave the Sony display, time, messages, internal (departmental) information. It is a future we are heading for, instant access and companies having instant access to us, it is not a Sony thing, it will be a global corporate thing. The question is not how it will happen, because it will, when it will happen is also not the question, the issue will son become, how complete will this digital transformation be? The introduction will be clear, the stage will be set, but I wonder how it reflects on us. I see generic housing’s to become almost a fashion statement, some will be smooth metallic, some will be titanium, some will be silver, or even gold but they will all house the generic watch given to us on day one. The corporate mobile tether that can reach us from 4G and beyond. 

A stage where managers can be contacted at home, a zoom conference from their Sony Bravia, all as the need of their global bosses require. A sort of time management per cycle, every cycle. 

I didn’t see much beyond that, but the setting threw me, not what was shown to me, but how casual I looked at the watch, like it was in use everywhere, a technology in a stage where it is the one corporate-employee link that all larger corporations rely on. A new stage of technology that we all accept, those who do not will not remain in any workforce for long. A set service that most corporations will rely on, the larger have their own solution, the others use a cloud based SAAS setting and in this day, with cloud transgressions set to 90%, the larger stage is not where we work, but how secure we can work. In all this, some technologies, the law and politics are running behind all the matter that is being hurdled against us. So whilst we are shown on how ‘New German IT law raises hurdles for Huawei’ to set the hurdle for one, but not the other we see “A key question with any cloud computing service is: “where is the data stored or processed?” It is a key question because location is not fixed in the cloud. Unlike a fixed server in your office or at a data centre in Australia, data in the cloud could potentially be located anywhere in the World and even in multiple data centres in multiple copies worldwide. In fact, a cloud service provider may not even know where the data is residing”, with a reference to “Some exceptions to this rule are provided, for instance, when the controller itself can guarantee that the recipient will comply with the data protection rules” and that is a larger stage where we see personal data in clouds where organised crime uses a system like their personal highway to information and the law doesn’t have a clue what to do to protect people, although they had time to figure out how to stop Huawei. Thi stage is about to explode in all our faces. Whilst we see marketing give the clarion call to ‘AI’, a stage that at present does not exist. The marketeers are feeding the legal minds in a stage that is disjointed. As I personally see it, the law is steered by the greed driven to stop some and clear their way to more profit, all whilst the changes will impact billions and no one is looking into the flaw that we ourselves create.And it is happening in a stage where Times Daily reports ‘Nokia to cut up to 10,000 jobs to ramp up R&D in 5G race’, an article (at https://www.timesdaily.com/business/nokia-to-cut-up-to-10-000-jobs-to-ramp-up-r-d-in-5g/article_5c02981a-a87e-5a02-8bcd-3efac378852f.html) that gives a larger premise. If you have to fire 10% of staff (10.000 jobs) to ramp up Research and development in 5G, how far behind are you?

All this, whilst Huawei is already far beyond that point, how desperate have people become? You need not accept my words, but the numbers by Statista shows that Saudi Arabia (one player that embraced the Huawei solution) is at present over 700% faster than the US, it is the number one 5G place to be, so how far behind will we all be in 2022? If the watches are seemingly the place to be, how many developers will divert to a place like Saudi Arabia to make that part a reality much quicker, all that whilst the EU and the US are nowhere near ready, so how long until others realise the bag of goods we are offered by those not able to deliver, will we hold THEM to account any day soon?

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March 15, 2021 · 16:38

Then the bite

In support of the previous article, I add a little more. We were talking about the creation (on Sony) of new RPG games, I gave part of that setting in that article but the largest station is not merely the game, it will be the story. A stage where we game away generations, we need the setting of a larger stage, a larger story. The story needs to be bigger than us, or bigger than any person could fit. Not exactly Disney’s ‘Once upon a time’ but you get the idea. It is there that we need to set the storyline.

  1. The drive. Bethesda was pretty good in starting with the prisoner part (Oblivion, Skyrim) and even as that seems appealing, I needed a larger stage (and avoid copying Bethesda). I wanted more than a steeplechase of serving (or servicing) others. In this upcoming poverty tends to be a decent stage, we all avoid that and we tend to van more or less ethical constraints. In addition there is the need to be more than one’s expected self, I tried it, it is mesmerising. In the age when too many people stated that I would never amount to anything, I ended up with a Master degree, the first in my entire family tree, so trust me, it is mesmerising, and that is also the push. If you can relate to a push, the story becomes a lot easier to write.
  2. The Narration. On some early Monday in my youth I actually worked (freelance) for Playboy for a short time and the editor gave me the biggest wisdom in writing that any person had given me in decades. ‘Write like you are talking to a friend’, I have taken that to heart for training manuals, for articles and for other writings and I believe I became a better writer because of it. The narration is more important then the dialogue, the narration sets the foundation, the atmosphere and the chase.
  3. Bullet Points. Yes, I do hate them when they are in some memo, but to get the story train rolling setting up 1-2 dozen bullet points of what you need to cover in a chapter tends to be a decent golden rule, it keeps you on track, it keeps you focussed. For me, whilst pondering the concept TV series ‘keno diastima’, it helped me focus on what was important (at that moment and that part of the story), and if it works there, it will work in a RPG game as well.
  4. Realistic. Yes it is an odd word to find in an RPG, but the realistic approach still matters, sometimes when the bridge is out, it ends, swimming across the stream seems nice, but the rules of thermodynamic are no joke and that is before you get introduced to Mr. Salty, he tends to be where you do not expect him and you never expect him in the first place. In other news, realism also applies when you try to kill an enemy the size of a main battle tank with a dagger, Daniel Boone is the only one who actually pulled it off, if the stories are true. That is one in thousands over the last 200 years, the odds are not good my friends, they are not good indeed.

In previous stories I gave something towards that storyline, but in the end, you are the best storyteller, you need to be, because you are making an RPG, and that is one play-style that cannot survive without narration. In this there are two ways, keep the stories separate (always good) and try not make them intertwining too soon, when you have enough of a narration, you can start to see if they can be combined or intertwined. It is a lot easier to have 12 small stories (300-400 words each) and after that see if and how they can connect, than trying to be clever and make one story of 5000 words that goes nowhere (i tried this earlier in life and failed dismally). 

And there you have a decent winning combination into the storyline for an RPG. Have fun Playstation programmers!

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March 14, 2021 · 07:38

First the sting

Yes, it happens, we get stung every so now and then. It is one thing when it actually happens, it is another when it is done for secondary reasons, which were the main reasons. Forbes gets us there with “Yesterday, there was a roundtable with Xbox and Bethesda folks talking about the recently finalised purchase of Zenimax, with the biggest news being the reveal that more or less every recent Bethesda game you’ve ever heard of was now being added to Xbox Game Pass as soon as today”, we get it it is a reason but a secondary one. There is also the exclusivity reason which is equally secondary and it is given as well with “a bunch of future Bethesda games, likely including the big ones like Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield, are going to be Xbox exclusive”, but it also gave us “on any device that can access Game Pass”, which will be their secondary Xcloud push. The article ‘Microsoft Stuns With Reveal It Bought Bethesda For Xbox Game Pass’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/03/12/microsoft-stuns-with-reveal-it-bought-bethesda-for-xbox-game-pass/?sh=27455bf8fa48) is more than that. The PS5 has broken all records and at present we get that over 4 million were sold in 2020 and it will rise to an expected 17 million in 2021. There is some conjecture because Microsoft is scared of the numbers, but it seemingly amounts to 2:1 on average sales two PS5’s for every Xbox series X sold, and it will likely rise to 3:1 when Sony stocks are globally replenished, these numbers scare Microsoft, which is why Twitter is drowning in XCloud advertisements. I also believe that it scared Microsoft enough to pay $8,500,000,000 for Bethesda. Bethesda has a loyal following and they hope that enough Playstation fans will drop the playstation to go wherever Bethesda is, the bandaid with the timed exclusive of Deathloop on the PS5 is merely a bandaid to deceive the minds, any gamer knows that the power of gaming is Elder Scrolls and Fallout. That is what Microsoft needs and that is why I had placed the setting of a new RPG as freebee for any Sony exclusive designer. I am about to add to that. And it might upset enough board members at Microsoft when others get for free for what they had to pay 8 billion plus, I am all about the sarcasm, unless it backfires, then it becomes irony.

You see, the largest challenge was that I am trying to avoid some Elder Scrolls replica, which is why I took the path I did and I added the generation stage, there is only so much exploring a person can do in one lifetime and I had the improvements for Assassins Creed to consider. So I created an altered stage for the player. 

The stage is set in phases, but I had to consider how to set the stage

Path APath BPath C
Path AXX
Path B1X
Path C2XX
Path D1

The story has a number of paths, we map the ones we take, but in this I am also allowing and setting the stage for the paths not taken, as long as the path has been discovered. To illustrate this, perhaps we can think back to Fallout 4, the first place you emerge from had a cold weapon at the end, but you have no skills to get there. So how many have forgotten that weapon? I certainly did the first two times I played that game. Yet it is about more than just a chest or a location, I wanted books, scrolls and tomes to be much more profound, I also wanted to make sure that you cannot carry like a mule and that the chest in your house does not hold a container full of stuff. Most RPG players are hoarders, as such I will need to change that premise too. As You see in the table, the first person (path A) will take paths B and C,  this is where the shoe gets a new style, there are two outcomes, the person dies before betting back home, in which the next generation has no idea where to seek, other then follow the same map to find his parents remains, this is a limited chart as there are only three options, but the stage is seen when the parent goes home after path A,2. Now as he is home the next generation gets their diary and tomes filled, more important, some of the skills are automatically gained. As such the next generation will not start from ground zero, and whilst that person has every option to take skills into new directions, it will be up to the player to do so. The second part is the map, I made mention of it in an earlier story, but what if we take what Assassins Creed does to a whole new level? There are dozens of RPG’s and they all map similarly, what if we change that? Each generation is at least a decade apart, we get to evolve mapmaking and transcribing maps during the game, so consider the AC2 map of Venice, going to the top of a tower fills it in, yet there was no learning curve. 

I want that time is an equaliser and evolving stage here, as such generation one will give entrances to a place with roads but not much more, all whilst generation 3 will map out roads, hazards, and also give rise to dangers AFTER you visit it, not before, unless the diary had given out the dangers in a place. These are just a few additions, or alterations to current RPG games. Like the blowpipe, I needed to get away with the bow and arrow, optionally crossbow. I wanted the blowpipe and later allow for something like a catapult (slingshot) to be introduced to keep range weapons alive and to give something new to the game. As one goes away a new portal opens and that was the intent all along. As evolution becomes a much larger stage in this game, we are confronted that death is pretty permanent and it allows for a new dimension if you play it in permadeath. In the end the stage is around these parts, but the story is still the most important aspect. So take the previous stories as a template and see what happens when generation one goes into one area, but as generation two you can travel in opposite directions, to set the land to that contrast requires a larger map, more options and different kind of hurdles. And there we see the initial part, with well over half a dozen stages that Bethesda never considered (or optionally rejected), and now it is in the public domain and we can show Microsoft what it feels like to spend eight point five billion on something that looks and tastes like a lemon, but that is merely because they thought it would solve all their problems and I am happy to add to their misery (I have to do something). So let’s make games and set the bar of Sony versus Microsoft to 5:1 or better, gives those Micro$oft people something to cry about, most of us will like that part anyway.

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