This is not the first time I get here, but it is not a repetition either. Some things struck me and I reckon it is time for Sony, Google (Stadia) and Amazon (Luna) to wake up. To be honest, when I saw the earliest presentations by Sony I reckoned that they would be the first to take social networking to a new level, but no. I do not know whether they wanted Facebook to chip in, but after all the settings we saw pass by our screens, the setting is changing that either they start thinking things through, or they will be surpassed by others and it will cost them. Not unlike the Cocoon Network, it needs to have limitations, it needs to be advertisement free and it needs to service the gamers. Anything different might be seen as treason by these gamers and that would be disastrous. In this the idea that mimics Google Plus the most is the most appealing, yet it is not set in stone.
They need to consider a few things. Copy/Paste should be disabled, so that something stated on that cluster stays on that cluster (there will always be workarounds), but that is not the goal. You see the A-social network (Facebook) is full of flamers, trolls and shit stirrers and these networks can do without those. It needs to be clusters where gamers INVITE other gamers, and until the invitation is accepted no one has access. A person can only see other conversations in that cluster, they can copy what THEY added to other clusters, but it is cluster based. Then there are ‘commercial’ clusters. People who keep track of the game-makers like Microsoft, Ubisoft (if it still exists by them), Bethesda and so on. People want to keep track of their favourite games and game makers. People can add achievements and so on, but there needs to be a filter where we only see the achievements by a person that we also have. There should be more, but it needs to be a push station, if we include other means of social networking. It is the one flaw that is still not dealt with and no one has decent option. I reckon that Amazon has the greatest need, so that they can grow faster, but Google should not be sitting on their hands, not on this one. The visibility and growth of a console is versatility and Google dropped the ball twice already. In the first they decided not to produce games, it is not a real failing, but it is a weakness and therefor a threat. Then they let Amazon get close, in a field where they should have had a superior setting they ended up merely on par with Amazon, it still strikes me as odd. And in all this I do not care what Microsoft does, I simply do not trust them.
And when we think about it, a console with community clusters leading to a nexus or a collection of nexuses was simply the next step and when Facebook screwed themselves over with Cambridge Analytica the others should have made a larger effort, as such Sony dropped the ball with the PS4Pro and the others are till not there, they need to because then Facebook launches Meta all over the place it will be too late for the other players to start and sitting on ones hands in a $200,000,000,000 market is folly even in the most conservative setting. In this Amazon clearly has advantages, but we should not rule out Sony. They need to do something and so far there is no indication that they are getting ready, making their advantage shrink, not by too much, yet any lagging lead is a win for the number 2 through number 5 consoles. That has always been the case and now will be no different.
That station is on the roll, and I reckon that the lack of that choice will hurt the players not ready in 2024. And when we see the carefully phrased denials, as well as the cautiously stated ‘We are working on it’ will be seen by gamers as a negative side in all this, do not take my word, merely watch how the gamers will ask in flammable ways why they were ignored (yet again). I cannot stress this enough. It is time for the consoles and streaming systems to consider what gamers need and where gamers would like to be. In this Twitter and Facebook might be nice, but the people are more and more weary of both of them and that is not a good place to set your console.
We all want to talk about our games and our achievements, but so far the people trying to flame what we do is running into the thousands, and that is causing a larger stage of doubt with gamers. Giving them a safe space is becoming increasingly essential. I see all over Facebook pages where a 17 year old proudly brags what he got done in FIFA and I see dozen hammer that person seconds later. Wouldn’t it be great if that person had a cluster with school and gaming friends and that person could share it just to them? That is the station for an invitation clusters only, and that need is fast and vastly growing, so why Sony never picked up that ball is a little beyond me. The streamers will not have that luxury, that much is clear to me.
Yes, these things happen, the point where luck is a factor and in some games they do happen, but the factor is not as profound as a Ravenclaw boy hoping he gets noticed by Emma Granger, or was that Hermione Watson? No here we apply the Skyrim principle. Instead of grinding, later in the game, I enter the embershard mine wearing dragon plate and before the bridge there are two miners, I walk up to them and let them have a go at me, with Dragon plate my armour rating is well above 550, so they can pound on me whilst I have dinner, read a magazine and at the end I am up 1-3 levels and my heavy armour is now legendary 100. A simple solution.
Yet what happens when we change the premise? What happens when the bad guys get a lucky blow as well? Consider:
Bandit
Bandit Marauder / Plunderer
Bandit Chief
There lucky blow rating starts at 1%-3%-5%, yet as levels go they can go up to 5% – 15% and 25%. Now that game changes a lot, but we can introduce negative influx. A 25%-50% and 75% protection through blocking and defence parameters. A stage that alters the game somewhat. So my approach of walking into their midst would no longer work (well likely a very limited version). It is the old battle setting that all attack without defence is pointless and all defence without attack is useless. A setting we all forgot about, or at least too many of us forgot about it. Oh, and their lucky blow is a blow that does 300% of the normal damage.
That same principle applies to sneak as well, we tend to see ‘a failed sneak’ as a side effect, whilst a failed sneak giving the opponent a free first hit is much more intense and optionally realistic? Many RPG games see a failed attempt at the stage of a loss of positive elements, whilst introducing no negative ones. That failing stopped the gamer from becoming clever at what they to, a setting that is a failing in the game because the game needs to contribute, always contribute.
I believe that having a lucky blow element is nice for us, but it needs to contribute by being nice for them too (to coin a phrase).
We can never rely on more of the same, we can never rely on the easy path because it will undo gaming in the long run. And in this Skyrim is a perfect example as it has shown itself to be close to perfect for over a decade now. And the only way we get better games it to push that envelope. Did you think I was kidding when I stated that Amazon with its Luna has an option to sell 50,000,000 consoles? It isn’t that Google is not worthy, they decided not to develop games. And any clear and massive bodyblow to Microsoft is a winning punch for gamers everywhere. We gamers must stick together because Microsoft only stands for itself, it has shown that for well over a decade as well.
Upgrades, we all know them, at times we desire them or we hope to be around to see them. For the most, no upgrade was every loathed (except Windows Vista). So where can we take gaming? We have one stage, w have more stages and we have the ability to connect stages. Now, lets take Skyrim. The anniversary edition was a welcome edition, beside the glitches there is not much to tell, and focussing on the glitches with a game this big is utter BS. For the most I have had a hell of a time. But the mind keeps slipping, and it is not needed, I want to wait until Hogwarts Legacy is released to see what else is possible. So far I have created two new gaming IP, yet the mind is struggling to find a third. This matters to me, because that IP will focus on a separate station. Something that might not be unique, but this version has never been done before. A Greek RPG, that focusses on the three Olympian gods. You must choose between Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. You align with them and as such you will be instilled with the powers that align to that god. So we get basically several worlds. Olympus, Earth, the oceans (earth too) and Tartarus. A world where the gods have missions, they play games and you have to steer your ways into diplomacy, battle and conquest, and subterfuge. You will need to resolve issues, collect evidence, clean messes up and at all times you are rewarded with Ambrosia. Very small items and you need three full cups to become a genuine deity. So could you do that? It is not merely can you do that, can such a game be made? In this it makes sense to look at Skyrim. Now consider that I had the setup for TESVIII: Restoration, that setting had the map of Cyrodill, but now at 9 times the size, connected to that was Skyrim (about 50% larger) and for the main story Valenwood AND Elsweijr. Now consider that the map for Όλυμπος would be well over three Times the size of Όλυμπος and it would encompass the entire Mediterranean, Spain, Italy, Greece and north Africa. That is beside the setting that Tartarus would be massive as well, and mount Olympus would not be too shabby or small either.
Why so big? This is easy, to create a biodiversity, a larger setting for natural combat and survival, the need for interactions. The larger the map the more natural could feel. So this ends up being not a console game, but a streaming game. This leaves us with the Google Stadia, the Amazon Luna and optionally the Netflix console as well. And the game needs three main quests (three gods, three paths, three main quest lines), that is bedside the side quests that will take up a massive amount of time, there are two versions, the one you have as an aligned player, or an unaligned players. So you will need to consider what you can get away with and what you need to drop. That is the part we forgot about in Skyrim, is it not? We can do everything and there is always time to do everything. So what happens when time and alignment becomes a hindrance? We forget the oldest setting, we need to consider that some things cannot be done and that is before the people intervene.
Not everything can be done, not even as a god, doubt me, then ask Hades. He’ll tell you when you die and he always has the same joke “So where is your wine now?” And that is before you see the impact that happens when the game-map is not static, it is actually dynamic. The Mediterranean map that goes from the beginning of the game 4500 BC – 2000AD, and the map will evolve and you can watch, travel or participate. A game setting that has never before been done. There would be a real consideration that this generation of streaming consoles cannot deal with it at present and that is fine. Yet should we stop developing to the fringes of hardware in the future? I believe not.
And this is not a small project, it has never been done, so it is appealing, the stage where we can traverse this area over 6500 years, and as a god you are immortal, but the stage is still finite (reason classified for now). Consider mapping out the Roman Empire and the impact it had, an impact you can watch yourself. A stage where we need (beside the quest lines) well over 300 quests per alignment, well a lot can be replicated and aligned challenge versus unaligned challenge. And as you become more olympian and as you lose your humanity you might lose options and you might lose links but that is part of life and we forgot to add life to the RPG’s of the last decade. There is no blame, it is no ones fault. It is a mere setting of what the computer can deal with and now that we have the hardware that can deal with it, ignoring that much of a leap seems trivial.
A game that is a challenge and educational in several areas, a game that has never before been made, because until recent there was no hardware to support a stage that big.
So what do you think, would you try such an upgrade?
There is a time when we get creative, we all do that and we let the mind take a gander into a direction we never considered before. In one part it is an essential journey towards finishing my novel, I left that part alone for the longest of time. Even as I already set out 55,000 words with about 20,000 on the back burner. Things were going from place to place, but it was too linear, too much of an expected anticipation (if that made sense). Then two things happened at pretty much the same time. The first one is that either I am getting hacked (in a clumsy way), or the Optus network is in a massive level of disarray, it is not doing its job, whether it is from a congested network, or services are failing on a much larger degree. But it also gave me an idea for the book.
I will try to explain. Consider a cube, consider the image of a cube. The absolute centre is a large battery, it creates 101% energy. The corners of the cubes are smaller and in their way they also create 101% energy.
If they are maxed, they hand power over to their neighbour. First the other corners, then the midway points. As such the complete cube consists of 20+1 energy points.
As the power is maximised the system can operate on 100% all the time, the rest is bled out towards a matrix taking the cube to (for example) a hexagonal prism, from there to a 8 sided shape. The issues is when maximum power is maintained for too long. That is what my mind wanted to figure out. It seems silly, but it matters for the story and I believe that the story needs to be as well set as anything else. To let the story go on faith is for fantasy and I have nothing against fantasy, but there is a larger setting here, so I feel it matters that I try to make the story fit on as many parts as possible.
In the image the symbols are atoms, but in this, what they are cold fusion systems? The problems is that ‘our’ version of cold fusion systems are flawed (to say the least) to get it to work you need two elements (see the book when it is done), one of these elements is on Jupiter (3-5 miles deep), the other one is not in our solar system because the element requires a specific situation, the element is called Celestrium and that is a 8 layer noble gas which we do not have here and it cannot be manufactured. As such we are in a quandary, but I always stated that is where we tend to get really innovative.
So in this setting we can fuel a large system (or ship) but not all the time, or at least to some degree all the time and the larger this system becomes, the larger the ship or the larger the power output. In all these settings there is an equation, but that one eludes me for now (my science degrees only took me so far). So as I rely on science drenched fiction (which is not the same as science fiction). I see a larger station to add pages to the story and it also gives the larger reality of a place without all the elements and all the facts, making speculation and innovation a larger setting towards reality (or at least as I see it).
So my delusional mind came up with a few more pages into a tory that might lead to something larger, or so I hope. Anyway, the idea goes back to anther state of mind, It is one I had in secondary school. I considered that a dimensional element has a shadow that is one dimension less. So a line leaves a point as a shadow, a cube leaves a 2d shadow, a 4d shape leaves a 3d shadow and so on. It is simple, lame and clearly debatable, but that was my thought at the time, so my mind was always in the setting that space leaves the shadow like a cube, so what does the shadow of time look like? And my young mind could never figure it out.
But the journey of learning that I had limitations is also a nice one. You see, limitations are good, it allows us to look beyond and seek new paths to overcome limitations and some journeys are positive and some are negative, that is always the case. In this we rejoice in achievement, but we learn so much more from failure, some learn this early in life, some will never learn it. It is up to the person learning to handle that lesson and we all do that in our own ways. We always do.
The creative person finds a way, the less creative circumvents it, or avoids it, whatever their preference is. I am merely happy that I found another element in a larger story and that story matters, because it started in Iran, in early Mesopotamia, in the age when someone build a ziggurat known as the Tower of Babel (a much larger story) and that part is still important today, even if we ignore it, but not the fable, not the christian lore of apprehension, it is the real part of a story that has larger considerations, or so it is my thought on the matter. When the lore fails, the words can be seen for what they are and there is more into that side. We need to see beyond lore, especially in storytelling and gaming, because that will enable us to create and recreate what was into a story that we find easy and able to digest, because digesting stories is what it is about. It is our own approach to delusion in two part harmony. I have mentioned Bethesda several times in the last few weeks, but they did create greatness, it is seen in Skyrim, who did not consider to live in Skyrim? Who did not want to have a house like Windstad Manor, with our own fishery, a nice comfy bedroom and a cellar where we could smooth the day away? When you realise that want, that internal need, you can start seeing the application of lore, the application of an altered story. This is not about changing truths that are centuries old, it is about an altered narrative that comforts us, not history, but fiction and fiction is all about personal comfort, it has been for decades, even longer when we go back beyond Jane Austen, Charles Perrault, Laurence Aldersey and that already takes us back 500 years. We can go back a lot further, or we can see how far we can move forward. And what can we do to get there? I do not have all the answers, you will not either, but together we can see what is possible. Yet this is merely my view on the matter.
We all have thresholds, one allows for choices, one bars choices, one allows, one denies. You can go on with that premise for a long time to come, it is how we roll. I saw (on YouTube) some of the NHL22 video’s. I also saw a few complain video’s and a few other videos. I understand the complaints, they do not bother me (I am no NHL player, alas), but I get that some of the issues are there and they will not be resolved any day soon.
I gave my largest attention to the PS5 version of NHL22. Now I need to be clear. I am not certain if this was a final release version, or a beta. What one states is not always the case. But the thought came to mind as I was considering a few items.
Pro The look and feel is awesome, presentation has taken a large foundation and it looks good. The previous version I has was NHL19, so over three years there is bound to be some improvements. And as we see the way things present, it looks good.
Con I saw a whole heap of glitches. Now, I might have missed them if I was playing, but compared to NHL19, the glitches are a lot more profound and ugly I might add. The unnatural skate movements that players make, the way the fallen player gets up and the unnatural skating done at that point. It was riddled with glitches and that is why I wonder whether this was a final version. The look of the players is really good, the rink looks good and the names are nice, but no everyone will like them. I cannot vouch for controls as I was watching and not playing.
I saw more video and more complaints about puck dynamics and puck response, I also saw a few more glitches and a few that are not really glitches, but it did not add up. This can be my view on the matter and I prefer to say that upfront. The game on the PS5 did look decently amazing. So it did not quite blow me away, but it did impact. And I have not seen all the modes, so there might be more good news that I missed out on.
Threshold? For me there was a threshold. You see my team (Capitals) won the Stanley cup. So I was eager to get the new edition with Ovechkin on the cover, but EA Sports decided that for Australians, it was digital only (bloody bastards). I am not paying $89 for a digital product and I am not interested in some digital subscription. As such, a threshold of frustration was reached.
What will happen to NHL22? Well, apart from budgets in play. There is still the issue of a physical copy. I get it, NHL is not on the Australian mind, it might have something to do with water not turning solid in almost all of Australia, so I get it. But the fact that it cannot be ordered, that it is digital copy only is a problem (for me). This is how it is, plain and simple.
It also related to another setting. As I was brooding over two pieces of IP, a third option came forward. Now, it is too early to comment on it, because there are a few sides that need ironing out, especially on the privacy side of the matter. Yet an idea is starting to take shape and depending how it irons out, I will put it online too (too busy with other options at present).
It is how we see the digital world that matters. Or perhaps not see it, experience and feel it at present. I have been brooding on making domotics and wearables a larger stage, but that too is fraught with obstacles. We want to have it all, we want to offer it all, but how long until a third party exploits it? As the law fails its citizens, I feel that the threshold of publication rises and raises a lot more questions than I am happy with at present. Can we in all honesty fight for revenue in domotics when it endangers the privacy and safety of people? I feel that it is wrong to push for one setting whilst ignoring another side of that very same coin. As such we see thresholds.
You see, to get back to the beginning I need to push towards a program called SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). They had a procedure called PLANCARDS. The simplest stage is “PLANCARDS produces profiles, or cards, from a plan file for a conjoint analysis study”, this is all fine. But the problem is that today that data is used in very different ways, often in ways that the ‘targets’ were never made aware of. An optional context could be “By using a fractional factorial design such as this it was possible to get the information for each of the sixteen sport event product profiles displayed”, now we need to see this as a clever way to get insight, but it can nowadays be warped. You see, the setting of Fractional Factorial design is seen as “A fractional factorial design allows for a more efficient use of resources as it reduces the sample size of a test, but it comes with a tradeoff in information”, the problem here is that ‘efficient use of resources’ still relates to the 80’s-90’s setting of computer resources. These computations would take hours. Now it becomes a very different field, but the people using that often forget the part ‘a tradeoff in information’, or even more accurately stated ‘a tradeoff in lack of data’ one glove washes the other would be cruel and unjustified, but that setting is actually the one that matters. You see people with a less clear intent towards your good choice, they will be all about exclusion, not inclusion which was the initial PLANCARDS setup. The intentional creation of thresholds. Almost what Microsoft did by buying Bethesda. That amount was the hope that their failed console would be bought by Sony players who were missing out of the next Elder Scrolls and the next Fallout. It is a brilliant strategy, but I decided to make a new RPG, an optional new way of playing RPG’s online and make it public domain for Sony and Amazon Luna. The reality is that this approach does not really stop Microsoft from using this, but the visibility that they paid for Bethesda whilst the new game has many parts that were online and free would be a decent reason for firing the board of directors of Microsoft. Yet that is not the point, the point is that any iteration or innovation towards inclusion can also be used to do the opposite and push for exclusion, a side we all (including me) seem to forget until it is too late. It is for that same reason that I published a way to sink the Iranian fleet, whilst not putting online the solution to melt down their reactor. Not because it shouldn’t be done, but because I figured out that the ramification are a lot larger than I initially considered (I was happy that I did in time).
We can look at what exclusion does and what inclusion does and see how our solution impacts all. And I for one failed that considerations a few times in the past. We all do because it is in our nature. It is (as programmers state) the dangerous setting that THROUGH and THROUGH TO tend to have a little different impact, but do that a few times and you end up losing an entire population cluster. We all faced that and when we do we go ‘Oh bollocks!’ We can redo the setting, or if we were stupid we get to redo it all, it is not that you make a mistake, it is the impact of forgetting about rolling back data, that is when you end up getting royally stuffed.
Thresholds are a way how we keep issues we care about in check and they are personal thresholds, yet in domotics it is not merely about your house, it will be (for the wrong kind of people) to learn where YOUR thresholds are, we all have them and for the revenue greedy people it will be about finding the exclusion threshold, because that is when they can offer THEIR package and you will vacate your old provider. As I see it large players have seen them and they are looking at the setting where they are most likely to entice you and that is in part on what makes you dump your current solution and select THEIR solution. In this domotics and wearables will change the game as the larger true 5G network rolls out on the global plain and its solutions are accepted by most of the people looking at more ease, more comfort and less hassle. Yet there is the danger, like the tradeoff we saw in one part, here the tradeoff is less hassle means more outspoken data of what you want. Did you consider that?
Yes, it happens, we all find tuff and wonder how it was possible to make that mistake? It is called Sloppy, sloppy with a capital ’S’. In this I am referring to Skyrim PS5. Now, lets be clear. This is a free update. Yet this is also the 5th iteration of the same game. In this I am ignoring the Nintendo Switch edition. So there was the Xbox 360, the PS3, the PS4, the Xbox One and now the PS5, I did not get the new Microsoft console as it is soon to get the wooden spoon award (dead last in the race), that is if Amazon accepts my offer which will set them back $25M, but it will give them 50M additional consoles sold and that is a careful cautious estimate, it might get a lot higher in 2023. So after 5 iterations I played it again and in this I tool the stormcloak side. It was fr the mere reason to get Hjerim earlier in the game. I also took the Vampiric side, because I needed those 11 perks achievement. So when the Stormcloak campaign starts and we take Whiterun (as we do), the city marker is removed from the map, as is dragonreach and the personal housecarl of the old Jarl remains in the castle, the music is now set to battle music all the time and that is merely what I found. All these glitches (not really bugs) are here and update 1.001.001 does not solve them. So why is that? The PS4 edition did not have this, as far as I remember. The updates fix something (I reckon) yet issues remain. Now lets be clear, it is a free edition, yet it should be better. I did not buy it because if I spend A$80, it better come with a physical PS5 disc, that is how I roll.
And there is more, but I want to make sure that this is not some bitch against Bethesda who gives away a PS5 edition free of charge (you still need the PS4 disc). I also recognise that the game is so good I never had any second thoughts about the 4 versions I bought, the game has brought 10 years of joy and in gaming time that is more than a lifetime. Yet the design I made of my new RPG as well as the initial TESVI: Restoration was a continuation of the excellence that Bethesda had brought. And there are options of making it TESVII: Restoration, but to be honest it was never with Microsoft at the helm and with them ‘sort of’ announcing that TESVI will not be a PS5 title, the option of Restoration will fall of the map as well. I get it, there was a tactical reason for Microsoft to dish out $8,500,000,000 for Bethesda, but that does not mean that I like it. A brilliant strategy but a flawed one. So should Amazon take the offer I will make it my duty to hand Phil Spencer the Wooden spoon (with golden engraving of ‘Microsoft’), that is what is required. This is not against Phil Spencer. He was given a lousy hand and he is still standing. Giving us that this man could have reached legendary status if the coins did not fall where they did. And consider that their marketing division will have to spin the setting that ‘the most powerful console’ will end up being dead last in a console race. And before Microsoft did what it did, it was never a consideration. I was not mulling over options and hardware opportunities. Anger did that and when I found what I did, I also did not expect to find the option this open. How could no one see it? And even now I am still in awe of the oversight others made. The question for me to me is whether the show of ‘sloppy’ in others had anything to do with it. In a total time that was smaller than a week I came up with TESVI: Restoration, Watchdogs IV, Far Cry VII, Mass Effect 5 and a few more games. Even a new approach to board games on streaming systems. Another week for a film setting, a mini series and a TV series over three seasons. I need to be careful not to blow my own horn but I did this, I found this, I created these elements, so why could they not?
And the issues is not merely the setting of what is and what could be, the idea that can propel the Amazon Luna has never been done before and that is merely the first wave, the second wave will offer a hell of a lot more and that is when the big bucks come rolling in (minus 10% for me, I hope). And that is all before you realise that the bulk of gamers would really want another Marvel: Ultimate alliance, not version 2 or 3, but version 1. Why? Because it was close to perfection. It brought joy back to gaming. They took the 1985 game Gauntlet and made some serious upgrades and Ultimate alliance was the result and it was awesome. But after that the wrong people got involved. With their ‘what if’ and ‘if only gamers could’, and they never checked with actual gamers and the result was sloppy. The first one I played over and over (I never found all the figurines the first time) and it was awesome to finally find the 5th daredevil figurine (I think it was daredevil). No matter what, the game was awesome and I wonder what would happen if DC takes a shine to Gauntlet, or a Diablo minded game. There are plenty of options for loads of games, yet the setting is up to the designers. I am not a game designer, I am a storyteller and in RPG I have value. I do not feel that I am a great asset towards a new version of Ultimate Alliance.
So whilst we are criticising Sloppy with a capital ’S’, there is a rather large lack of ‘Standards’, ‘Supremacy’ and ‘Superbness’ all with a capital ’S’, gaming should embrace all those needs as well, not the old discussion of ‘What if we only please 80% at launch date?’ It might sound nice, but that sets the stage of pushing 1 out of 5 to another platform that does not embrace it and so far the Sony exclusives embraced perfection (as close as it is possible), so after three games the other consoles face the risk of having lost three out of 5 gamers. Yet it is a slippery statistical slope, but it is not unrealistic. It is the danger of pleasing 80%. And that is why Microsoft is in danger of getting the wooden spoon (well, my idea is still part of that danger for Microsoft), so it now lies with Amazon (Google does not create games), as such they are absent of the discussion.
A stage of gaming that required console makers to listen to their gamers, Microsoft blew that stock royally in a few ways, but that is what they signed up for. Angering gamers was the one mistake they could not afford to make.
I have been playing Skyrim yet again. I saw an old glitch returning and two new glitches I had never seen before. Hilarious (to some degree). But it also gave me pause to rethink parts of the RPG game I discussed over time in this place. You see, those who played the game might identify that the cupboard in Breezehome has 143 ingots of metals, 15 wolf skins, 4 goat skins, 8 pieces of armour, 12 necromancer robes, a few great-swords, swords, a dozen daggers and a dew more items. This cupboard is twice the size of a night stand. So do you guess that it will all fit? Then I remember the way it was done in Neverwinter nights and my mind went to town on designing a new system.
Part 1 Int eh first part lets take a turn back to the middle ages. Cupboards were not discarded and new ones bought. Cupboards in those days were a sign of wealth, they were upgraded, they got new functions and taking that in mind. I thought of setting a new premise.
Any cupboard has a size and use, yet when the wood sort changes, the maximum load also changes. The same can be applied to ‘runing’ the furniture. In this I used a Raetic approach (it makes sense when you know more on the game), We can upgrade any furniture UNTIL you apply Raetic sigils. When you do that this piece of furniture can no longer be adjusted. So as we have furniture, we can add sigils to add space in the cupboard. So if standard a cupboard can keep 6*10 squares. A rune could add (2-5)*6*10. Sofa’s and chairs can be given sigils to improve regeneration, rest, healing and other matters. It changes the game. Apart from the rest required, regenerate mana is a lot longer process, we think in Bethesda and other terms towards mana, but what happens when that too changes? What if the recuperation is depending on rest and sustenance?
Part 2
We seem to feel that the IKEA approach in these games is OK, but is it? We have become so attached to consumerism and that approach needs to change. Also the cost of what we have in our houses. It is like the Pokemon rage. We have to have it all, and that is wrong. I saw that coming a mile away, so the replay factor is diminished. The learning curve changes. And the need for furniture shops, sigil deployers for wood, stone and metal are a larger stage to add to any game.
In all this we need to set that part and it gave me the idea of an old concept, the bard!
Part 3 Who remembers the comic books of Asterix? Remember Cacofonix? So what happens when we add a bard to the village we live in? The type of bard we find and the type of bard we invite could change the way the village harmony runs. Some bard are good ay creating a fighting atmosphere, se are for feasts and parties, some instil horror (in the invaders). All parts of a game where we have no real control, but the impact is still seen and felt in the game as a whole. Why have we forgotten the second tier influences in games and in gaming?
So as I am going through the motions I see a whole range of changes and updates that Bethesda does not have at present, and with the choices that Microsoft made for them, there are a few more items that could be added to a system like the Amazon Luna, slipping the Microsoft solution further to the back and as optionally Sony and Amazon pair up, there could be a much larger gain for some, more than the additional 50,000,000 consoles sold that Amazon could have at their horizon. There would be a much larger gain and in this fight these two could get a much larger slice of the $200,000,000,000 gaming revenue that is predicted to be at the end of 2023. Personally seen, if Microsoft only gets 10% of that, I would be cool with that. Anything to make them pay the price of short sightedness.
I is just a stage, but consider what I designed over the last two days alone. Microsoft may make all the claims they have, but I am pushing it out here (as it is not 5G). And all this is optional freeware for Sony and Amazon consoles. So there!
There is always a counter side. It does not mater how good anything is, it does not matter how large the win is, there is an opposite it is the price we pay, the price we accept, because on the whole the deal is actually rather good. There is no opposition, this has been a given truth for decades. At time you need to be ruthless, at times you can be compassionate, at times you have to cut the deadlines, at times you can extent deliveries. They are choices, there are always choices. Some good, some less so. It is the way it has always been
The price of lame It is a side we see and often ignore. In many situations it means crappy, I would say it merely means crappy but that would be wrong. In this example we look at Bethesda and their latest iteration of Skyrim. Some will say ‘Lame’, ‘more exploitation’, and ‘more of the same’. I say when a game is this perfect you would want to have it as you move on. I have played the game on Xbox360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5. The game is so large and so near perfect I would want to keep it and there is an upside. The PS5 is free as download if you have the PS4 version. There was alas no physical version. We can state it is lame, it is less, but this is a game that millions have enjoyed for 10 years. So yes, parts are a set A$80, yet the game gives you a lot more, the free edition gives you less new stuff, but I have seen my share of free parts already, after 4 days I see that the game is renewed, it has more and it feels great getting these achievements again. In 10 years the game never disappointed. The price of lame is perhaps a lack of innovation, the opposite is that the players want this game, not another game, it is a tough balancing line and so far Bethesda has done OK, apart from selling their soul to Microsoft (for $8,500,000,000).
The price of tame Weirdly enough it is Google who gets that part. On the one side they have shown great innovation, they have shown massive strides in many areas, from searching to advertisements, they were there, they were first and they keep on rocking, on the other side their console (Google Stadia) is tame, they are not developing software, they are relying on Ubisoft to push that crate (and it will cost them). The other side is that two innovations will pass them by, the innovation I worked out (and are now meant for Amazon Luna) could bring Amazon an additional 50,000,000 consoles to the market. I know, even with shortages it will be a stretch, but that is the setting of tame, you can be non-aspiring, to be non-exciting yet that too comes at a price and in this setting Amazon would be in second place (temporarily overtaking Nintendo). On the upside, it makes Microsoft the wooden spoon contender, with the most powerful console in the world they end up in 4th position and I like that. Microsoft needed to be taught a lesson and I intend to bring it (If Amazon accepts). And that is not a high number, it is massively conservative, because this has never been done before so I have no data to rely on, the numbers could end up being decently higher. And that is merely the first wave, the second wave relies on another player, so I cannot say at present, but that could end up pushing the Luna even more, but I have no idea how much more. What is a certainty that gaming will alter and in the first stage many players ant a piece of that, not all, but plenty.
The price of game It is not easy to look at people as game, but these anti-vaxxers are taking their toll. We can be as social as we like to be, we are unable to properly set up taxation, but we will tax the health system to the max. We see people dying of heart conditions in ambulances, because the ICU’s are filled with anti-vaxxers who now have covid and they are crying like little children. I say that unvaccinated people are not eligible for ICU unless they pay upfront, the reckless endangerment of life is not a cause for healthcare, it needs to become private care. The umbers are staggering. Of all the hospital admissions 80%-90% is unvaccinated. This evidence is ignored too much by too many. There is a slight difference per nation, yet that is understandable. We can treat these people like kids, but then they claim they have rights. OK, you do and with that you get the right to pay for it yourself.
We see three examples where we price choice, price is not always monetary, but often it is, yet the opposite of that coin is often not monetary. It tends to be quality, quantity or quest like. There is no clear formula either, it is not a neat package, yet there tends to be some red line forming in the sand. The underlying part is that some accept the cost of doing business, others are in denial and they want it all, and guess what. You cannot have it all, there is no way. It is like the old equation of a house. Price, Quality and speed. You can only select two of the three, the third will go in another direction. A sales division will state that you can have all three and then they task their marketing department to set the premise of the third to expectations. Yet that is a figment in their imaginations, and when the data comes forward we get some ‘miss communication’ excuse.
All neatly wrapped up, yet when we dig we get to see the price more clearly and we often see a party in denial, but what happens when it is YOU who pays that price? What happens when YOU need to make a choice, can you? Choosing is often hard, especially when the price is clear. But what do you do when it is not? It happens and not always intentionally, how can you decide the price then?
Yes, this sounds bigger than it is (and it is). This is the economy for an RPG. A few places had idea’s, one was particularly helpful. Yet in the stage of the game I designed here, I decided to take a different route. You can barter all you want, yet in the end it is the economy around you that needs to flourish as well. If you do not take that route, you get either a ghost town, or a passively silent one, one that can only move when you are there. It is that approach that is reluctant to me. You cannot create your story, become your story on a blank page where everything is depending on you. That has been the case sine before I was born (in the age of Black and White TV’s).
So as I was mulling over what I personally believe to be a shortcoming on the Elder Scrolls. I turned in another direction and saw the glitch in Fable 2, but the stage was good, so I decided to take a larger gander and set up my own premise. On September 25th I wrote ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which gives the list of most articles linked to this game. I will now add:
Behold the economy (OK, that was way too ego driven) yet the stage remains true, you cannot live or play in a vacuum, so as I wrote ‘An almost ordinary generation quest’, I set out the stage of stamping out the economy, there needed to be a stage where you can grow and optionally through you the town could grow. In t6his we need to take notice that a city takes decades to grow (if not centuries), so the town can only grow to some degree. If we consider the baker, the butcher, the fisherman, the blacksmith, the bookshop, the tailor, the potter and the leather shop we see that these people have average skills (2 or 3 out of 5), we need to see how to grow the town. In one stage I talked about the potter part, it will be a growth stage, so to grow the economy, when you gain skills (in your travels) on any of this, when you return home you can teach the shops the skills you learned, it gives you some income, but the larger stage becomes that a town gets X amount of people travelling through it. More important, when a shop becomes more important, more people will come, so there is a benefit to teaching them, because what they sell, benefits you too. And more importantly, when these shops grow into 4 star places, I needed to add a risk as well. You see, some people are depending on ‘non change’ I insist on change, so there is a small percentage of a chance that when the get to that level there is a small chance that they will pack up and leave for ‘the big city’, in addition to it that risk increases by a factor when they become 5 star places. It creates momentum and it creates a larger stage of movement and turmoil. You or your kids can teach the shop again, or they can move themselves.
A stage of fluidity that we haven’t seen before in RPG gaming, and I wonder why not. I can not be the first one to come up with this, could I? A stage of increased growth and economic values will also hit the city, when the city grows, the shops have less reason to move (they are revenue driven too). It sets a new stage, instead of having 15 axes, 23 swords, 7 mauls and 2 halberts, we get a stage where we can sell that as scrap to the blacksmith who will create new ingots and create new weapons. That only works when he becomes 4 star or more location. The herbalist has a need for resources, you bring he has no need to move, or to seek out danger. And in this all shops are almost the same, there are shops that will not need ‘feeding’, but their skills too are related to the ranking they have and as you teach them, their value increases and the village grows another step.
And so we create a new stage, not merely collecting weapons and armour, but a stage where the shops grow what they have and to that respect also the scrap they receive from NPC’s and the new goods that come with that.
I feel happy, I created the foundation of an entire economy in a game, there are a few unmentioned parts and there are a few parts not here, but I am still mulling them over. In the meantime, anyone who wants to create an Amazon Luna and Sony Playstation exclusive RPG, feel free to use these ideas (free of charge) and let’s give Bethesda a run for their money, whilst pissing off Microsoft at the same time (slugging two for the price of one tends to be more satisfactory).
Have a great day
P.S. WordPress still haven’t fixed colouring, their CEO might be colourblind
Why? Because train of thought reads too boring, thats why! So this all happened, or better stated started happening a few hours ago. Someone stated that IBM Z Mainframes are in 96% of all mainframe places. Now, I have no problem with this, I moved out of mainframes 30 years ago, and I still respect what these things can do (they are just too big for my desk). Yet in this, my first question was, what do the other 4% use? A simple question. I got all kinds of answers, yet none of them answered my question ‘What do the other 4% use’, in this it does not matter if it is known, but it is essential to look at.
Why? Well, in this IBM has a luxury problem, they basically own 96% of that market, but the 4% can become 8% then 16%, at that point the message from IBM becomes 4 out of 5 use our mainframe. When the 96% is 120,000 mainframes it is one thing, when it is based on 960 mainframes it is a whole different story. The numbers matter, that has always been the case (even if Microsoft is in denial now they are shedding market share).
Reasons There can be a simple reason. For one epidemiology, if it is about real time numbers, the market is slim, massively slim, compared to that market a size zero model is a mere chunky blobernaut. Cray is one of the few players in that setting and it makes sense that a Cray is there where an IBM is optionally not. Still, I would want to know.
You see, in strategic thinking we have two elements we ALWAYS need to keep one eye on. One is threat the other is weakness. In this example real-time data management is a weakness. Now we need to understand that this market is set to billions and those who desperately need it, that number is not an issue, yet for IBM investing that much for 4% is tactically not sound, not until that marketshare is a lot larger. That makes perfect sense and let’s face it no one owns 100% of a market, if that ever happens we will have a lot more problems than we could possibly understand.
Why do I care? Well, for the most I do not, but at present I am not to involved with any SWOT analyses, and the ones I did lately was done for wannabe managers who seemingly only understand bulletpoint memo’s. The idea of any strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analyses that is related to business competition, project planning and capability planning is more important than most people realise. We see it in intelligence, business intelligence and market intelligence. And now we see two new real markets emerging where it is important too. Gaming and SAAS/GAAS. Even as GAAS is still some time away, the need to actively SWOT in all three is there and I believe the players are not too finicky about that and they need to be. As the cloud is oversold and the dangers are underestimated their board of directors need to hold up a mirror where they can tell themselves that it doesn’t matter, and when we understand how completely those people are lying to themselves, at that point you might get the idea that there is a problem. The SWOT has more sides, it tests your capability, your software (Strengths and opportunities) but that needs to be levelled by weaknesses and strength.
800 years ago To understand this we need to go back to the good old days (Ghengis Khan). It was he who stated “It is not enough for me to win, my opponents must all fail”. Yes, I admit it is a massively loose translation but it applies to the now. When we stumble over sales people and their unnatural large ego’s, we tend to listen because they make the loudest claims, yet are they valid? Consider Solarwinds and what they enabled criminals to do, when you consider the news last week when we were given ‘SolarWinds hackers stole US sanctions policy data, Microsoft confirms’, it was a weakness and a threat, so when we how long the hack was active and that we now see that policy data is online and open for anyone to look into, what other sides are not yet known? It is not enough for SAAS vendors to look at SWOT, their customers need to do the same thing. So when I considered the 4% is was not because I need to know everything (which at times is still nice as a high executive CIA decision maker has a girlfriend that has size 6 lingerie, his wife is size 11), so who needed to do the SWOT, someone at the CIA or me? One could say both as I am his threat and he is my opportunity.
The stage of what is what could be remains forever in motion.
So where from here? That remains open. For players like Amazon, the enabling of GAAS becomes more and more important, especially when you see the blunders that players like Ubisoft makes, they need to be aware of where their customers are, especially when Netflix becomes active in gaming too. They will have an advantage, but Amazon can counter it, yet there are sides that remain unknown for now and they should not be (not on that level) and there is the rub. Too many rely on external solutions when that solution needs to be in-house. And we can disperse with all the marketing BS that some give like “We are a better company now”, when you drop the ball to that degree there was a massive space for improvement and you merely are on par for not being where you should have been a year ago. An old IBM Statistics wisdom was “You’ll know when you measure”. This sounds corny but it is true, you cannot anticipate and adjust when there is no data and in all this any SWOT analyses would have been usable data. So where was the 4%? I do not know and the poster seemingly did not know either. It might be fair enough, yet when that 4% becomes 8%, when should you have known? It is a question with a subjective answer. Yet in gaming it is less so, especially as I am becoming aware (unproven at present) that Microsoft has one nice trick up their sleeve. There is partial evidence out there that Skyrim will be on PS5 in digital formal only. Several shops now have a ‘DO NOT USE’ for any physical PS5 format of Skyrim. Now, there might be an easy answer for this after all these lockdowns, but it is only 4 weeks away now, so you tell me. Is Microsoft playing its ‘bully’ card? Are they trying to push people to Xbox? It is a fair approach, they did pay 8 billion and change for it, but consider that their actions are set to a larger stage. A stage of millions of angry fans. I solved it for them by creating public domain gaming ideas for any Sony exclusive RPG game. I am not Bethesda, I am a mere IP creator, but when software makers are given a free ride towards Sony exclusives and even if one game hits the mark, the Bethesda market share dwindles to a lower number. Now consider what happens when that happens on Amazon Luna too? I might be a mere 1% factor, but if another one joins me I grow 100% whilst Microsoft dwindles more. For Microsoft Amazon is becoming a real threat and a weakness, for Amazon Netflix is optionally a threat and a weakness whilst Google Stadia is optionally the opportunity for Amazon.
All SWOT settings that could have been seen from afar from the beginning. It is not everyones train of thought, yet in this day and age, I think it needs to be, the markets and our lives are changing in all kinds of ways too quickly and too large, we need to think head and having a clear grasp on how to apply SWOT in our lives might become essential.
The difference? That is a much harder line to follow. It comes down to the word ‘Insight’ and it is a dangerous, a very dangerous word. Because depending on the person this can be Insight, speculated insight, expected insight, and adjusted insight and more than once they are all on one pile making the data less reliable. Insight is also subjective, we all see it differently and that does not mean that I am right and everyone else has a wrong station. No, it is all subjective and most CAN be correct, but as the insight is disturbed by speculated, adjusted and expected versions, the numbers alter slightly. And now we see that 4% was not 4%, is was 7% and 5%, 5% because there were other IBM mainframes in play (adjusted) and 4% was the speculated number and 7% was the expected number. Now we have a very different station, the expected moves us from 96% use our product, towards 9 out of 10 are our customers, which is now a mere step towards 4 out of 5 use IBM. So would you like to bring that conversation to any board of directors? They’ll serve your balls for dinner (see image).
Still feel certain that you do not want to know? In reality most SWOT analyses are seemingly pointless and often amazingly boring, yet in this day and age they are an essential part of business and gaming at $130 billion a year is facing that side as well. So when you consider what I gave you also consider the impact that some shops have ‘DO NOT USE’ for Skyrim preorders, 4 weeks before release, lockdown or not, it beckons all kinds of questions. And to be fair, there could be a simple explanation for all of it, but that too is the consequence of trying to create hypes via YouTube without clearly informing the audience. It is a weakness Microsoft has shown a few times (Bethesda was never completely innocent, but equally never this guilty).
So what has a game in common with a business setting? It is simple, they both need to manage expectations and that too is a side of SWOT, even as marketing often merely focusses on opportunity, there is a weakness and a threat. The lack of clarity and misinformation are both a weakness (angry customers) and a threat (churning customers) and in the world of gaming the churners are the real danger, they can get the flocking population of angry gamers to come with them and really make numbers spiral downward. In this day and age SWOT is an additional essential way to go, in nearly all walks of life. We simply can not avoid being that naive anymore, not with spiralling energy prices and more and more articles that can at present no longer be found in any supermarket, all whilst plenty of people are in a holding pattern for their incomes.
It is a train of thought and it is up to you to decide if you want to do it or not, because that was always your right, the right to ignore, but it must be said that it will be at your own peril.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 