Tag Archives: AC Origins

January 3, 2025 · 13:37

Changing the question

That is an old setting that has been around for over 30 years. It comes from either market research or politico logy. You see, that setting was given as “If the answer does such the mines not match, change the question” and it has been used in all kinds of media for decades. As such I get to the article in question (at https://insider-gaming.com/ubisoft-far-cry-7-and-maverick/) we are given ‘Ubisoft wants to change the ‘Far Cry formula’ with Far Cry 7 and Maverick’. I found the setting hilarious. You see, we have AC odyssey (2018), AC Valhalla (2020), Far Cry 6 (2021), The Division, (2016), Ghost Recon Breakpoint (2019). That is a mere 5 titles that (as I personally see it) flopped because of shoddy programming ad even worse play testing. I personally see Far Cry 5 as a failure as well, but I have a few personal resentments against it, and I will not hold Ubisoft to blame for that. A stack of failures where the price of these titles drop by over 40% within the first month. It got to be that bad. Riddles with auto assumptions in these games to a much larger effect. As such when the article gives us “It’s understood that both games have had a significant overhaul to their movement systems, too, including the addition of tactical sprinting, sliding, vaulting, and more. Seemingly, this is due to both projects originating from the same game and sharing similar movement mechanics, with the similarities of both games bleeding into one another.” Well, in the past a lot of movement mechanics were blamed, but I saw that as shoddy programming. And as we look at blunder after blunder, the issue isn’t the system, it is the programmer, the director and the play testers. These three sides should be intertwined in creating a top product and they weren’t. As such I will not touch any Ubisoft product until I see a proper version and properly assessed. YouTube influencers are useless as I see it. So as I see it see it, the quote “Ubisoft is seemingly trying to break its own trend of chasing trends, and Far Cry 7 (or whatever it’s called) and Maverick seems to be a step in the right direction, albeit a considerable risk.” Should be seen as a proper one, but I for one see the larger danger in ‘chasing trends’ because gamers are not trends, they need to feel the comfort of a game and that results too often in more of the same. As such we might see AC Odyssey as a part of a revolving trend, but the auto assumption comes in play and the gamer gets into too many ship battles on day one, all whilst the serious setting of ships battles were that they happened seldom and with large gaps in between, all whilst the predecessor (Origins) was a solid product. 

Then there was the breakpoint failure. With a headshot resulting in the ping of a Triangle and the helmet flies up for over 30 feet (I remember headshots in 1982 playing out differently) and that ping was not part of the equation, neither was the flying helmet. Then there are all kinds of other settings that made little or no sense. All whilst gamers want to see ‘some’ level of ‘reality’ in that. The games had become a joke. No actor of any level could fix that (in this case Jon Bernthal). Ubisoft obscured their own view to the entire world. As such the answers never fit the bill, so they changed the question and most people will accept that software was the cause. As I personally see it, Ubisoft had much bigger concerns, solid programming being the first issue to address, when in doubt watch Assassins Creed: Syndicate, they are on Youtube. Flying carriages, I asked Tinkerbell and she denies every pixie dusting any carriages, she also reminded me that carriages cannot have happy thoughts. That is merely one setting, one of dozens why Ubisoft is phasing out of the gaming industry. I am not a sceptic thinking it should all be 100%, I have seen my share of stuff floating on air. But for the most when it doesn’t hinder the game, it doesn’t bother me, when carriages go awry in air, it becomes an issue and the waves of panicking NPC’s in AC Paris is just a little too much of a shift in playability. So, yes they can change the question, but gamers have a long memory and they have upset too many of them. As such as I foresee it, there is a setting that makes the Ubisoft stock go down another 25%-35%. Remember that in 2021 it was €84.60, it is now €12.86, that is already an 80% drop and it could get worse. The next released title tends to be the instigator. As such it might depend on Assassins Creed Shadows how this plays out.

Have an awesome 2025 this January.

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August 15, 2024 · 00:20

By any other name

This started some time ago and today things started to mesh up in my mind and it got started with the movie Gods of Egypt, I watched it again this evening. The setting is not one could debate the reality of things (as one could consider), but there is the crux. What is real? 

You see, this is the question that I have often asked myself and this week a few things happened that calls an old idea into power.

You see, Ubisoft did most of the work and AC Origins set it in motion. When you get the addition on the game, you also got a tour you had to complete, visiting a brewery that makes beer and a few other places, places that were in the game and now Ubisoft added a tour to show the players how far they had taken the game. It was brilliant and some will find it boring. Yet it could be taken further and in part based on their own IP.

You see, what else could be done?

There are two settings here. The Egyptian side gives the people the option of polytheism, the believe of multiple gods. The game could take you on a trip as a diverse amount of people in Egypt and take you on a trip of worshiping the gods like the Egyptians used to do this. We could limit the player to be in Memphis, Alexandria, Letopolis and a few others. The second site is the Roman side, with a Roman farm, the ability to learn Latin, set this part to Latin and as we are thrown into the deep end we learn a language and there is a market, more importantly as Ubisoft already created the IP, it would be a simple alteration to the game to engage in languages (Egyptian and Latin) and here you are no hero, you could be a roman legionnaire, a scribe, a farmer or a slave. We saw the impact of it in all kinds of TV series, but that is the story told us. So what would it be to live it? And that is only the beginning. At some point Ubisoft will create a Unreal Engine 5 transfer making it as lively as possible and there we could use these programs to educate. And Ubisoft has the IP to make larger changes to programs like AC Mirage and add Arabic to the fold. 

Now some people might think that this seems boring and yes. It is not a slice and dice game, but it is IP that exists and could get a double function. You see as people ‘return’ to learning the classical languages they will also increase several other languages Spanish, Italian all have a grounding from Latin and in this day and age, we need more to keep us busy. There is only so many time that you can chase a Pokemon, or kill the masses in a race car. To give people something more will soon be the only way. The people and the gamers want more. I have nothing against Elden Ring or games of that nature, but how long can you play these games? And here Ubisoft clearly has the upper hand. They created such treasures from the old days. The renaissance, Egypt, Native America, Victorian London, Paris and a few other places. They have the materials, so why not employ the powers to use them for education? For me and many others Egypt have held sway on us and there we get two settings. In the first the Egyptians and in the second degree the romans. The second one could be set to the area of Pissa Oros Citadel. Where you have to complete several ‘tasks’ whilst you optionally do it all in latin (an optional advanced setting). And now (either as Egyptian or Roman) you do it without any assassin skills. 

Will it be successful? I believe it will and with the IP already made by Ubisoft, there would be a case to see it happen. 

Am I right? I don’t know, but the idea to learn ancient Greek, Latin or Egyptian is immensely appealing and I know there are more who find it appealing. There is whole group on Twitter (still refusing to call it X) with the notion to lean Latin, with a few thousand members. 

Just a thought to get through the day, it’s Thursday here now.

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November 25, 2023 · 02:11

Stopped making sense

Yes, at some point my mind stops making sense. Even to me. The weird part was that I had no idea whether it was simply a dream, the setting for a video game, a script or even the future. OK, the last speculation was definitely not the case. 

I was on trip with a motorcycle, riding the roads and taking trains in or around Switzerland. The roads had gotten so bad that bikes were allowed on trains (for an extra fee). I was being hunted by an assassin with a chrome coloured .22 with a silencer and that dweep was really accurate with that party popper. I had escaped his vision and I got somewhere around Lausanne (I had to look it up). The thinks that make it all unreal was in the first the bike, which was the bike Kaneda drove in Akira. The second part was the hotel outside of Lausanne. I had room 25334. I have never ever seen or been in a hotel with numbers that high. My mind filled in the blanks from trips to that region. 

The thing that is the most elusive were the roads. The roads had to a larger degree collapsed. They were pretty good in Switzerland, but with Germany’s economy collapsed the roads in Bavaria were dismal, no mentionable repairs had been made in close to a decade and certain seismic shifts broke the roads even further. 

There was a stage where it could have been the setting for a new game, gaming with a difference. You see GaaS (or streaming service) allows for a larger stage of gaming. Consider that a game has more than one side. Consider the setting where you have a management game for infrastructure on your mobile. A match 3, or a Tetris, or puzzle game (or all) that gives you funds for your infrastructure. The results comes into play in the larger game. If you do not do that (always valid) you aggregated average of a cluster of gamers is what the game uses to improve infrastructure and utilities. This would show in all kinds of ways. The hotel was perhaps a reference to the collapsing cities. As economies go bust many buildings will lack maintenance. The cities would become deathtraps. Certain ‘luxury’ hotels would be available all over the world for those who could afford it and local hotels in places that still run would be the envy for those who could not afford to stay there and boosting local economies for those who could. 

It is an evolving idea, but the premise that this is an optional truth coming to us in the near future has been a driving force in gaming for the longest of times. What does matter is how we push that future. I believe that streaming systems will become the future. By being inclusive in more than one direction is one way to go, not the only one, but one direction that many game makers have ignored (for too long). There is also the other side (one I am not ignoring) not all lie the match 3 games. They are algorithms that are designed to make you almost succeed. I hate them. But there are other directions, other games you could play on your mobile. So how to connect them? How to get another game to entice people to play and then connect them to the stage of the larger game? This is not always an easy task, but it is a challenge worth meeting. 

Then there is another path that occurred to me and that one is specifically for Ubisoft. Sony had the Playstation Home (2008-2015) and many miss that open simplicity. Ubisoft has/had AC Brotherhood, AC Black Flag, AC Origin and AC Mirage. Just 4 out of a lot of options. Any person can get an account and can select a world and they end up being in that world owning a house (partially random) and for $1-3 a month the can have a house in a second location. There is also the upgrade. As you select for the upgrade in location one (a more unique setting) you get the second location for free (or the second location upgrades the building in location one). It allows for a new setting for fans. A place they loved they can live there, walk around that town or city and  live to some degree in that temporal environment. Now consider that Ubisoft adds a VR engine. Now the AC fans will get a jug of lemonade from places they revere. And there as an additional setting. It is an environment where Ubisoft has exclusive marketing rights. A place where they can evolve NPC characters and it is in a system where there will be millions of fans. All the places we ran through, but now we can call Alexandria, Aaru, Aten, Duat, Krokodilopolis, Baghdad, Firenze, Rome, Venice, Monteriggioni or Havana our home. As these places evolve and as our systems evolve, we could end up with an actual address that can be wielded in the real world. 

As such our secondary address could become an actual address. These are services now laughed at, but 25 years ago web addresses were laughed at, now over 1,500,000,000 people have one and they are holding onto this for dear life. Ubisoft lost (read: squandered) so many IP options, perhaps it is time to look back in seeing what they could regain and it is their advantage, the graphics are already there. The places to see are already theirs.

Just a though and it might not make a lot of sense, but in 1995 a web location made no sense at all either. Evolution is where you see it.

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October 18, 2023 · 02:19

Unwinding

This article is not for the faint of heart. One could argue that there is something wrong with me (there always has been). I just had the craziest idea and if you reject it, that is okay. I have a hard time accepting it myself. You see, we are in a stage where we are nothing more than a puppet in a show that we do not want to watch. We are made to watch it, as such we need to unwind.

So here you see Watchdogs: Legion. A good game, but a game that could have larger stages. You see, Ubisoft made the map and the environment and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet to offer some stage to unwind, a new system came to mind. 

You see, there is an evolving setting where Ubisoft could release the option to enhance ANY game they have with user created DLC options. If anything Bethesda has shown just how creative users could be and Ubisoft might spin that in a new direction. You see, people have had enough of certain clowns and that is where my creative mind came into play.

I chose Watchdogs: Legion, because the environment fits. Now consider that you are a new character. The character is a seal hunter. You are shown in shoddy clothes wielding a spiked bat. Now you have to stop is disperse 10 Just Stop Oil protests by clubbing the protesters to death (just like some do to seals). Lets be clear, this is just a game. The higher level is that you need to do this before the protesters can create too much financial damage. 

You think it is bonkers and yes, to a degree it is. But the media is no longer trustworthy and as the photo-mode comes into place with you showing off the protesters you killed, people might stop to consider just how stupid these protests are. For Ubisoft it is a win-win. They sell more games, they create a DLC creation kit that allows to make user created IP for the games they own and we get to blow off steam because we arrived 90 minutes late at a job as some protesters were dancing in front of a bus. If enough hay is created with photo mode and these protesters have to consider just how much stress they are creating, they might decide to select donuts for dollars. So these protesters might go a new direction, but the story, the song and the dance remain the same. Seeking limelight in the wrong way and for that we have a solution. A spiked bat to release the stress they inflicted upon us. 

Next could be Karen hunting In San Francisco or Chicago. The options are endless (well for as long as Ubisoft has location games). Yet the underlying setting is there too. You see, we love our games and some love the settings of the Creed in Italy, Egypt and now Baghdad as well. Yet when you are done with the 25 hours in Bagdad, wouldn’t it be great to test the DLC from another fan? I am not sure of the technical possibilities to get that done, but when you consider 3 Watchdogs, at least 5 Assassins Creed, several Far Cry games. I might not have liked them all, but they all have a well pronounced fanbase and as such a DLC creator might be Ubisofts ticket to get additional revenue. It will be limited to PC, I get that, but when the DLC is good enough, perhaps Ubisoft might make some of them additions to consoles as well. Just a thought. 

I have enjoyed Wednesday now for 2 hours. The middle of the week is here. 

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October 20, 2022 · 14:01

The evolution of gaming

I have spoken on this before, and in that I tended to be specific, almost micro-manageable. It comes when you design IP, it is a path where you want to track every element so that you are not left in a loop, left with too many unknown parts. It is the way things go and especially when you do not have a brain-storm team, you end up designing as much as possible all parts of the equation. This is not new, this is how it is. 

However, In this stage I need to take a helicopter approach, I need to oversee everything (sort of), I need to take a wider stroll over this stage because the next part is not how to create a game, most can do that, most can set that stage. I need to create a stage where close to a dozen games a year can be created, a dozen a year for 3 years at least. So that the people are given new choices, new options. Streaming is a different kettle of fish and it cannot be approached in old ways. Weirdly enough the one I bitched about the longest (Ubisoft) has a clear advantage in streaming games. As such their approach towards GaaS is not the best but it is the most evolved one and they have a truckload of IP that comes with it, as such they are in pole position to get there. They lack elements, but they have a clear group of titles that could become clear winners in a streaming station. There are other elements in play and not all the players are clearly identified and there are other elements, like certain titles (example the Horizon games) that people would want to play again and those are not contenders, they are happy alliances. But it cannot be just about that, any system needs new titles, remastered titles and the less known, the better the chances. It comes as an addition towards the 50 million subscriptions I made a claim towards, but to sit on my laurels is not my way, If I can make the essential steps to make it not 50 million, but up to 75 million from year one onwards, I will have succeeded to a much larger degree and to end up seeing Microsoft executives choke on their Azure yaps, all whilst none of them look blue is a clear win for little moi and I like my wins, especially when it is warranted. And for them? Well the old saying (my old saying) applies. The blowback of sarcasm is merely irony, and I like to serve my irony with a wooden spoon award. It is not enough for them to fail, I want all others to see why they failed, why they should have been regarded as stupid from the get go and that is merely my bonus. So I am vamping up two of the three elements and it should be enough to get the ball rolling, and then I hit a snag. Well not exactly a snag, because I cannot test the snag. It leaves a trail and that I cannot use at present (well not until after the Saudi government paid me). And I have a stage that needs to be repeated a dozen times so that there is a floor-plan to work from and that is going according to plan (for now). There are two elements in play. How to make a worksheet, a plan of attack on the premise of art where we can identify enough elements to make sure that most hurdles are addressed, that most issues are identified. That is the task and that is not simple project management. Some project managers will make claim that they can do that, but outside of less than a dozen, how many +90% games have been released? The Xbox has released 6 games with a 90+ rating since 2020, over two years only 6 make the cut. Sony had 8, a clear win, but still low when you consider the investment of the dozens of games that were created. And it is not merely the 90+ games. One real hit was AC Origins which only got 81%. So there is another pool to work with and I decided to look at another pond altogether. I wrote about that too and when you consider the alternatives the investment per game decreases enormously creating a shifted investment number, one that is ultimately more rewarding. And there we have the station we need to look at, the second branch is close to complete with well over a dozen titles. It will take mere days to get the second dozen and branch two will be close to complete and then branch three starts, but I will not write to much about that. I like my surprises a much as I like to serve my plate of irony.

The evolution of gaming is underway, not because I said so, but because streaming games have advantages over console games, but it comes with additional dangers. A much better testing phase is required, the one elements too many game designers are weak on. Do not take my word on it, you merely have to look at the title AC Valhalla, released two years ago and it was still receiving patches three weeks ago. That side needs to improve, it needs to improve a lot. And there is the rub, any solution consultant that gives you the ‘these things happen’ line is wasting your time. Proper testing takes care of that and this is not done by too many. Streaming can only truly evolve when they have a better handle on it. This is not because it is GaaS, it is because Service will only last when the product is properly made and there Ubisoft left too many issues in the field. So you need an alternative to what they have, and there the second branch is the optional solution to getting traction to more people, and in streaming traction is the game that makes you the winner of the streamers and I have no intentions of losing, that is one definite that I am making clear to one party and optional Tencent too. But Tencent is complicated, they decided to work with Microsoft, making them the optional loser from the start, but that is the stage I am faced with, the question is what are my options next? If the Saudi government buys what I have, I am in the clear and my retirement starts. But if they decide otherwise, I will need an options and this is merely one of three IP bundles, so I am not out of the game yet, but I reckoned that the idea and proof towards $500,000,000 a month would have been enough, but I cannot rely on people making sense at times, as such I need a fallback position (as expressions go). And there I am doing work that is less creative, way too much tedious but essential, I get that. So here I am trying to work things out. On the other hand, in 6 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds the premiere of Black Adam starts, so off to the city I go and have a bit of fun, I have earned it. 

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March 7, 2022 · 22:39

The educational track

What if education got a helping hand? We seemingly play games, we seemingly read books, we seemingly learn. What if we unite this? And here we have a setting to the larger stage and I will admit that Ubisoft has the baton. They got it when they aded the Discovery tour to AC Origin. And when we weren’t in a rush to get the achievements we would have learned a decent deal of life in Egypt. The embalmers, the beer makers and so on. I stated it before, Ubisoft screwed up [plenty, but not that game. That one they got right and credit should be given where credit is due. 

And Ubisoft (others too) have been sitting on top of a whole range of IP that they could redistribute in a ‘plus setting’. The stage is decently easy. We have the person we play, we unite the maps of AC Origins and AC Odyssey and we go to town. Remove the wild animals, remove the enemies and so on. Then we add the tracks and works of 

Homer, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Plato, Hesiod, Democritus, Socrates, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, Herodotus and many more (well over 300 more). When set in a time line we learn and we now have an educational program. This can be done for Greece and Italy (aka Roman empire). The finny part was that I would have expected that Ubisoft had picked up on this, especially after the discovery tour. And let be honest, it is a much more interesting way of learning. See it as missions, from person to person, take a gander from where they were born to where they stopped living (or until the big works are illuminated). We see all thee boring books (not all mind you), but to use games to educate has not been explored enough and weirdly enough Ubisoft has an inside track here the renaissance  (AC 2, Brotherhood), US independence war (AC 3), And there is plenty more to tip on and with streaming systems seeking a larger hold, having the games with optional educational side will be a growing thing and lets be clear the expected $200,000,000,000 that the analysts state that gaming represents might go longer for Ubisoft if they find the larger application and I reckon that AC Origins (with Odyssey) might show to be a larger cash cow that could help them stretch time, time they basically no longer have. I would grasp at all options to stretch what is there. And they are not alone, but they are as far as I can tell the most visible one. 

We need to realise that not all games have an educational option, but those who do could have a larger stage to fill and a larger appeal (especially to parents). And don’t knock the idea. To get kids (11-16) interested in classical education topics is hard enough, getting them to walk the timeline of Homer and write a paper in it (with screenshots) might be the new setting no one in education considered before. It might not be their fault, but I reckon it is the foot in the door Ubisoft desperately needs at present. 

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August 9, 2021 · 11:31

To serve the gamer

Yup, that is a topic that is open for debate, but in my case it comes from a different angle. I need to explain how I got here. You have read my ‘displeasure’ with Ubisoft, they bungled (again and again), yet I also clearly stated that AC Origins is one game they got right. I actually disagree with the high 80’s scores the game had been receiving, I believe it to be low 90’s, but that is my view. The topic rose as I (due to lockdown time) decided to play it again and get some of the achievements I missed out on, I got half a dozen so far and I finally got to the Curse of the Pharaohs. I had the DLC, but my PS4 crashed to death somewhere in 2019 and as I had a little manoeuvring (covid retirement savings) I ended up with a PS4pro in 2020. And until a month ago I had no time for it, but in the last three weeks with being locked down I decided the play it again. So whilst gunning for ‘Old Habits’, I stumbled on ‘Where’s my Black Flag’ and a few others. But it was the Curse of the Pharaoh that made the difference. The first time I entered Aaru my jaw dropped. It was amazing, the field of reeds, the places, it was amazing and the boats made it all slightly surreal. The makers outdid themselves here. But this is also the place that gave me an idea. It was the side mission ‘Love or Duty’, the mission does not matter, the interaction does not either, but the mission clicked something in place. I had some similar ideas for Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration, but as it was not considered, it could be set to other RPG’s and even the one I designed. 

Your home is your castle
In nearly all RPG games, we are confronted with a house, unless you had Oblivion and you completed the Battlehorn Castle mission, in that case you have a castle. And there is the crux. In the light of Magic Carpet I want a castle with archers protecting what is mine. I had a few idea’s like the Magical armoury (a very different mission). And now the idea comes to add servants and more important make them a lot more useful. Consider that a person (a he or a she) is driven by needs, so if you can make one person happy (really happy), the others will pick up on it, and increase the power of your place.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy
To get to this stage consider that you have servants, some through concern and protection, some bought (yes in fantasy games slaves are real) and the proper treatment of them makes them more useful, yet if we can give one of them real happiness, an elated feeling of achievement or recognition they will become a sort of Uber-servant, a person that infects the people around them to be better and more productive. When we take the Battlehorn location, we see the Forge, the kitchens, the walls, the stables, we see a person in charge, but if we can fulfil the personal needs of one servant in that area, we get an area that is twice as productive. The house is cleaner, thee is more food, the weapons are better and the list goes on, it changes a 100% castle in a castle with 150% resources and optionally 150% defence (250% defence after the magical armoury mission). 

In RPG games it is all about us doing the missions, but a setting where we influence another to be the better person and set a non directive, a automated directive is almost never seen and that is a pity, because a game can become a lot more rewarding that way. Consider the old classic Dungeon Keeper, the monster we had fought for themselves, we could train them, we offer options, but we cannot set the marker on them, merely on the area. That element is often missing in RPG, it is not a fault, it is not a flaw, it is a choice and it is not used often enough, too many are about giving ALL the power to the player, but the world never goes that way, we forgot about the fact that we are not the deciding power, we tend to be merely influential. There is the thought that the reward is not 100% plus, but it is a random number between 150% and 200%, making it optionally a stage where we please a second person in that area, but the game also denies a red line approach, so the missions are not given directly, they need to be found and they depend on the persons we have, implying that we might never get more than one option, or even one setting. It is the second flaw on RPG. The ‘we always have an option’ clause. At times we should not have one, it is the hand dealt to us, and optionally it is a hand that sucks. That is the RPG we need to see but were never given. In an age where consoles will in be surpassed by streaming systems, the need to evolve gaming in general and RPG games specifically will become more and more pressing. To be another version of a game we have known for 20 years will soon come to an end and then? That will be the cruncher and streamers with one central game hub will have a lot more manoeuvrability than any of the consoles, the consoles will not phase out, not for the next decade, but when we do get to 2031, the field is highly debatable who will be in there. Because of stupid decisions in the 5G field, there will always be a need for consoles, as such there will be a Nintendo and there will be a Sony PS6/PS7, but streamers at that point will be a much larger field and optionally there will be a streamer next to a console in well over 50% of the cases. 

And in that light the need to evolve RPG’s (and a few other game forms) will become essential, it will show for the streamers, yet those who evolve gaming will survive (Nintendo and Sony for sure), the rest will be close to forgotten when we get to 2031.

Doubt me? Fair enough, just remember I said it first, I was the one stating it a decade earlier.

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July 3, 2021 · 22:22

Sapphire or Tourmaline

This all started some time ago, but it resurfaced as I started to replay AC Origin. In lockdown land any change of gaming is a well desired one and AC Origin is actually quite good. But that is merely the start, as I was playing (and as some missions are identical to the first time around) my mind wandered to a delusional IT manager in the early 90’s (1991 I believe). He stated “a resource shared is revenue doubled”, it is that idiotic level of fortune cookie wisdom that as actually rewarded, I never got that part. Yet there was a small gemstone of truth there, but not where he thought it was. As we make a jump to another place it is time for a question. How many real simulators are there? As far as I can tell there is one, only one. Nearly all others are games. The only one true simulator is made by Microsoft and it is the Flight Simulator, currently known as FS2020. Isn’t that surprising? A whole range of games but no one truly dug into the real of simulators. It tends to be really really hard, too hard for a lot of them. 

Yet here we get to see the light, Ubisoft has options (well it always had them, but more often they were ignored), yet with AC Origin they opened a door and now we have a ballgame. What if AC origin is merely the start of a dynasty game, a true simulator about life in Egypt? They have nearly all the graphics ready, the maps need adjustment and the spacing needs to change (like 1:9), so that every area is at least 900% in size but consider a true simulator where you are the beer merchant, the farmer, the fisherman, the embalmer, the priest and above all other arts, the overwhelming pressure of the gods and a monarchy that shows little to no mercy, a true first comprehension of what life was about then. And you cannot do it all, a stage where you get assigned a map where you were born and a role you were given, you have some choices as did the people then, but their options were very small, they had little choice. A true historic simulator and guess what? There are none. It has never been done before and I reckon that no one ever considered it to this degree, the technology stopped them, but with Google Stadia and Amazon Luna (and 1-2 alternatives) it is now possible. Even as I still believe that “a resource shared is revenue doubled” is utter nonsense, there is a gem of truth there. Some resources can be used again and that does not mean that revenue is doubled, but the second stage becomes easier and with hardship out of the way there is no reason not to contemplate a path none dared to walk and there is also the second ego reason, being first somewhere counts, being the first who gets it right to this degree is massively rewarding, others will have to fight to equal what you pulled off and it will vex them to no end. Will it happen? I do not know, as I said, this has never been done before and that is also the most rewarding part, especially for Ubisoft if they go there. The educational value is enormous. We are smitten by movies like the Mummy (Brendan Fraser edition), the 10 commandments, Rome, Spartacus, Cleopatra and it fills the mind with what could be, but people like Julian Fellows (Downton Abbey, Belgravia) has opened to some degree our eyes, just like the Vatican game I had in mind. This simulator could wake up an entire generation. Just like Steven Spielberg did with Jurassic Park. Who did not want to see the Triceratops? We have a similar fascination with the Roman and Egyptian era, yet books and movies is all we have and now we could for the first time get a true simulator. Yes, I will agree that it is not for everyone, but there is another upside to cloud gaming. We are willing to try a lot of games when it is included in some package, and there lies the gemstone. Apart from those who want to see Egypt is the past, there is another group of people who want to try everything. It is merely the sense of us as we explore and especially explore when it costs nothing extra, we are nearly all like that.

Will it happen? Time will tell, it usually does.

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July 26, 2020 · 23:14

Standing by my point of view

I have looked at games for almost 30 years, and so far in the mode of gaming I have been in, I tend to stand by my position. It has nothing to do with stubborn, or with some kind of elevated sense of correctness. Time has proven me right again and again. Even now as SuckerPunch is regarded as the gospel of gaming  (these things happen), I tend to see how things fair and so far I agree with the many voices, but this too made me realise that there is another path. To see this, we need to go back to 2014, a new Infamous was launched. Now, I still stand by my original view, is was above average, but it had failed to be great, even as all the elements were there. Two massive elements influenced it. The game was almost tediously linear and after the final fight you do not get to use the concrete powers to the degree I had expected. These two parts make the game good, but not great and that was a shame. Yet that is not the issue, I reinstalled it today to play it again for a few hours, even as I had completed it 100%, and in almost record time well over a third of the game had been done. This is not due to memory, I had forgotten most of it, it was due to linearity, but that was not the surprise, I know I had updated the game on day 2 or 3 and now another update was there. Over 6 years the game had seemingly seen 7 updates (It installed 1.0.7), the final update and the only one I had to install was less than 4 GB, for a PS4 game that is decent, and here we see the first issue, Ubisoft sets games to dozens of GB’s per game per update and this game from the early days does a mere fraction of this. I personally see this as proper testing was done at Sucker Punch, and Ghost of Tsushima shows this again (and again and again). A good developer will always win and innovation in gaming (a thing Sucker Punch has shown a few times) will always beat iteratively thinking Ubisoft. 

Even as I still stand by the view I had, the game was still as enjoyable as the first time I finished it. That is the power of a decent game and this game if not hindered by the two flaws might have remained on the legendary games list. Still, this does not stop Sucker Punch from creating a decent game, an innovative game and this is the issue, no matter how I see this game, I recognised it as innovative gaming, when I revisit this old game, I see just how powerful innovative thinking is in gaming. And whilst we consider just how correct I am, Google Search is filled with all the game magazines that are trying to use Sucker Punch as much as possible, Forbes even states ‘‘Ghost Of Tsushima’ Is The Game Of The Generation’ and it is hard to disagree. They also give the additional text “I am more glad than I expected to be to have a game like Ghost of Tsushima. Rather than giving us innovation, Sucker Punch has given us care and craft with the things we already know. It is a comforting thing to have, here in a moment when my country is still grappling with its failure to contain coronavirus and when the future seems less predictable than it ever has before.” In this I am not sure if I completely agree, I personally see this game as innovative, as such I partially disagree with ‘Rather than giving us innovation’, yet when we look at the separate elements, Forbes might have a case, it is the ‘Sucker Punch has given us care’ that is true, but proper testing tends to get us there (often enough), no matter how we see it, we see that compared to a player like Ubisoft it is a mere dwarf, a dwarf that creates titans, so whilst the news is full of all the things going wrong at Ubisoft, I have stated (for some time), that they have bigger issues, and perhaps these events we see hit the news now is a consequence of stress and taking it out internally. And even as we see the news on all kinds of statements and promises, we see that Ubisoft has a rather large problem, one that Sucker Punch never had, or fixed well over a decade ago, properly testing games. That is the heart of the matter and they do know how to do that. No matter how I see Black Flag, it was near perfect and so was Origins. So as such, I cannot fathom why they cannot hold the rudder right, Sucker Punch shows how it can be done and they have done so for a very long time. 

These two players need to be shown for the mere reason that one player relies on hypes and marketing, all whilst the other does not and gives us great games. So whilst I am getting a little weary of messages like ‘Ubisoft teases us with…’, I would rather see that they cleaned their company from top to bottom, because no matter what we see on certain people, the failings there go to the very top. It angers me, not because of whatever, the fact that they had good games and they wasted 2-3 franchises is a real drag, all whilst the products show that there is graphical talent and the music as applied is close to legend. As a gamer, does that not upset you? And even as I remain cautious on Far Cry 6, does it not sound like something we played before? Now, this is speculative so do not treat this like gospel, but what the internet gives us is apparently nothing more that Far Cry 4/5 in a Far Cry 3 setting. I hope that I am completely wrong, but Ubisoft does not have the greatest track record when it comes to innovation, all whilst my idea on WatchDogs 4 is a setting that is completely innovative and I wonder if all that innovation would fit into a new console (I just do not know) but is that not the foundation of gaming, to be on the edge what is possible and see if it can be done? MGSIV in the beginning of the PS3 and the Last of Us at the very end show me to be correct, In that same view Black Flag in the beginning of the PS4 is in that same foundation, so why are these franchises developed too short for their own good? 

Even now, games like Breakpoint might ‘sell’ high end graphics, but it lacked joy, joy that a GameCube game (Metroid Prime) had in abundance. Even now 8.5 years later, I can still find joy in Skyrim (originally released 11.11.11), apart from AC Origins, what Ubisoft game released since 2017 has that (I am personally not considering Rainbow Six as that is not my kind of game). When you see how short that list is and how many games Ubisoft released, we see the flaw of iterative game releases. And this is not merely Ubisoft, how many think fondly back to the Mass Effect Andromeda, after the release? All issues that proper testing could have avoided and it took less than one day to come up with Mass Effect based IP that surpassed Andromeda, it is that flawed and we need to get angry, because a life of good gaming depends on it, for all of us. 

Even as we need not worry on Sony and Nintendo, a Microsoft pushing boundaries would keep Sony innovative, that too is a given, when there is no competitor the remaining players tend to relax, history has shown that part a few times, so I prefer that Microsoft wakes up fast, but reality is not in my favour, as such here is every chance that after the PS5, the PS6 might not be as advanced as we hope (unless Nintendo really changes the game). 

If we look at the past, many have heard of Melinoe and the nightmares she brings, but who remembers Makaria? When we consider Makaria and according to the scrolls of Nikolaos of Damascus her meeting Ares, what was the result? When we see all these greek god based games, we tend to see the big three and the direct dependants, but what of some of the others? With the exception of series like Xena (PS1 game) all based on Lucy Lawless and her formed fanbase of life under greek god reign, nowadays we see covers of ancient greek books, but we forgot to pick them up and read them. Yet the foundation of RPG and sandbox games is larger than that and I see a lack of grasping the unexpected by many developers. 

And this is not some console war, a game war can be fought on many fronts, as such the setting of google Stadia versus Apple Arcade is not over, not by a long shot and these systems have limitations, it matters, because the days of the CBM64, a system with 38Kb of RAM, a 64Kb system showed an entire generation how cool gaming could be, 10-17 million units sold and 99% bought it for the games, no matter what excuse, like ‘I want to learn to program’ they gave (I was one of them). Innovation comes with limitation, and that is where true treasures are found. I feel certain that browsing through the Amiga 500 list, I will find at least half a dozen that will make it and become successes on a system like the Google Stadia, in this, even Ubisoft has a few titles, neglected titles that would be a good match to the iPad, a system at times forgotten for the games it can play and if it does it there, it will be wanted on the Google Stadia and the Apple version. Even later than that, anyone who remembers the Microprose titles would instantly try them on these systems in a new jacket, games born from limitations and they could be upgraded to fit a whole new generation (and please the previous generation as well). 

I stand by my point of view and as I see Ubisoft buckle and Sucker Punch become one of the most revered software groups, I see the options of games and how they can be on several systems between now and 2023. Time has proven me correct a few times now, I wonder when some developers wake up, as I see it, they have little time left.

 

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