Tag Archives: Fallout

November 19, 2025 · 06:26

Expanding all fallouts

I have had this thought before and I also wrote about it, not sure when a few years ago, but the thought overcame me last week as I was replaying Fallout 4 on PS5, the PS5 edition and it looked marvelous. Off course I knew most locations and had played it all, but the feeling of getting the upper hand over the wasteland never leaves you. And as such the idea of the expansion came calling like a good Vault-tec sales person. The idea was that an export option on the Fallout shelter is added and that is nearly all that is to it. But the tiny stuff (that Bethesda contributes) comes into play now. 

At first I wondered how to incorporate this into the current game. The first thought I had was is how to do this. The idea that a message via a fallout Eyebot is added, when you come within a distance of it, you can pick it up on your radio whenever you are near the Cambridge police station. It will be near there and the eyebolt has up to three keys as you can have 3 vaults in your Fallout Shelter game. Then the nifty part comes. Bethesda has a system to make your 2D map a 3D world. So how to give you a changing challenge? Well I was thinking that if you have only one map there is a 50/50 chance it is P or D (i’ll get to that), if you have 2 vaults, there is a first setting that the first is P/D then for the second is if the first is P you will always get a D, if the first one is D, you get a second chance for the vault of be P or Z. So there is the option of Pristine, Damaged, or Zero. If you have all three used they will one each. Fallout Shelter has 26 levels, as such we get 8 levels per 3D level. So that you have three levels, the last two are added to the deepest level. From there, there is one additional setting. In case of the Pristine version, the Overseer room will have an additional room which is your living room. So the Small, Medium and Large rooms will be set to that exact setting and ‘Bethesdisissed’ onto a 3D spaces. The only other thing is that if you have altered elevators, it will show in the new design as well. So what’s the setting with Pristine?

Well good question, you have up to three versions and it is randomly assigned, so don’t get any bright ideas. Pristine is a shut vault, as such when you open it, everything is new, Damaged and Creatures or Raiders have taken over the vault, the vault is mostly good and you get a new cleaning crew function, when that is done you can add and upgrade the entry point with all kind of goodies (turrets) and you can upgrade the entrance and create a safety entry. At which point the fast travel becomes in the vault. The third setting is Zero. The vault was destroyed (by unknown reasons) and there is an upside. They all have one legendary weapon and legendary armor, in case of the Damaged one, it will be in the boss chest, the Zero and Pristine one will have it in the overseer room (on a mannequin). 

The idea is to use DML to create a changing setting on how the rooms are drawn. So you can relive these settings in Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4 (and Fallout 5) if they ever get to it). A simple setting to add materials to a game and I am surprised that Bethesda didn’t get there on their own. There is no way that scores of Fallout Shelter fans didn’t think that it would be so cool to have this in their games on whatever system you play it. 

So Bethesda, don’t say I never give you anything because you are part of Microsoft now. Have a good day and enjoy the challenge you are giving to 230 million gamers (Fallout Shelter was downloaded that much). It was a simple equation and I wasn’t doing too much at present, the AI bubble and the American Tourism setting are starting to bore me.

Have a great day, my midweek is starting with a nice cup of coffee. It’s still Tuesday in Toronto and Vancouver. Time to see the day and seek opportunity.

Fallout, Bethesda, Microsoft, gaming, 

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August 13, 2025 · 17:48

The story script of lore

Yup, nice and confusing, isn’t it? But that is the setting. As I was playing Skyrim (yet again) the thoughts of lore went through my head. And RPG players might remember this. You escape the large lizard (aka Dragon), you go to Riverwood and then to Whiterun where you join the companions. Linear in extremity. Now, this is not critique. This is how RPG were played in 2011 and the hardware pretty much set you up for that. So, remember Richard Garriott who gave us the ultimate RPG in Ultima. I got introduced to his master skills in 1983 with Ultima 3, Exodus. But his idea were not used to the largest extent. Now I don’t want to copy his sewing, but the idea that every person has the ability to evolve their choice. Perhaps through an intro story where you have to make choices. So, to connect this to Skyrim, the choices will set you to a setting that will push you to Riften (thieves guild), Whiterun (fighters guild), Winterhold (Mage Guild) or Falkreath (Dark Brotherhood) there are a few other options (but I don’t want to give away the plot for others) There you get the option to get into the Stormcloaks or the Empire forces. Now we have to allow for a few other things, but the setting that you end up going to Whiterun to get to Bleak Falls Barrow, so that need not change, but the setting to give variety to this introduction is an option, and it could happen AFTER to evade that initial sneaky lizard. This could also be the first companion you get. IT doesn’t seem much, but the setting to avoid linearity tends to be massive in RPG’s. In addition to this, finding books, not just for skills but also for quests is a second. I wrote about this and it requires a more dynamic version of books. Skyrim is already doing this, but not with a dynamic pre skilled setting. 

In addition, there is the setting to adjust the game by alternative skills. Skills that are given to you by your parent (an intro choice really), so as that story evolves, you get skills in art, smithing, archery and magic. So as you start of with two of them. You get more pronounced maps, you get the option to see more in your surroundings. You might get a better view on ores and smithing, you get options to see more in shopping, which normally comes from personality. And over time you get the others too, but it shapes you more in the way you get through the first 20 levels and it is important to have balance there, so that people will try other things, not try the same thing at the start and then adjust the choices for the game.

This allows for the setting to own a shop and a trainee that tends to the shop. This opens up a new cog in managing the game and nowadays it is doable and has been for a while. I set that up for the game IP I created last year (might have been 2-3 years ago). The issue is not on Bethesda, they did a good job, but it is now in our hands to push this envelope higher. You cannot relay on one game maker to see it all through. That is where we are required to push new levels.

One of these things is the need to create your OWN journal and shape it through playing. Not just the expected quest things, the setting that you get to a cave and you cannot see how to continue, or a door that is locked. It makes sense that you make notice of this and optionally a tab to remember that you have to go back to this. The idea I had (for streaming games) that this journal could be exported as a pdf. A novel idea for RPG gamers (the novel part was the pun). An additional setting was the art setting, if you did not get this skill in the beginning, the art in your journal might be ‘lacking’ until you do get it, the same could be said for mapmaking. 

As I see it, the current approach is not wrong, but a little ‘vanilla’ (I actually hate that term). So as we see the additional cogs in the game we make the RGP more of an adventure. And whilst some titles in books are a given (also magical skill books) but some could have similar or a dozen settings for the title, so you can stop looking for a certain title. It is just an idea, but it could give the larger setting to non-linearity (and I am all for that).

So this was what I came up with yesterday and then I forgot it. My mind is flaky and weird, I know.

But these are things that could invigorate the desire for RPG games and I took Skyrim as an example, but this could equally done to the Fallout series. Anyway, that was the setting I was confronted with and even as I typed parts of this in the past, I saw this setting to see to the larger evolving stage of RPG’s.

Have a great day and don’t be a silly hero, when you see a dragon in your path, be like a mouse and let the police take care of that sucker.

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November 15, 2024 · 00:42

Yesterday’s news

Yup, we all have it. We all see it and sometimes we want to alter the prediction. It is not a biggie, or essential. Yet in this day and age where news is debatable and for the mere reason that we are blighted by anti-Trumpism, or anti-Bidenisms. We merely want some kind of a safe space to unwind. I usually do that be playing a game. At this moment I am all about Horizon Zero Dawn. As I see it the best IP we have seen released in the last 10 years. Over the two formats I have played (PS4/PS5) I found one bug in both versions and one additional bug in the PS5 version. It might have existed before, but I never encountered it. The game also have a few glitches, nothing big. Now the big part is that these are two bugs I encountered in a game that open and that big, it is almost uncanny to experience a game this perfect. But whilst I was playing the game my mind took a side step to an old game named Iron Helix. The game was made in 1993, an early example of a CD-based game, with video elements integrated with conventional 2D maps and controls. A simple pleasure. But in this day and age it could be made in something substantial. The video parts are updated, but this could be replaced with Unreal Engine 5. Now do not think it should include the original ship, but as a homage in the introduction it could be. Now add a objective to it like Salvaging, optionally pillaging (aka liberating) or a few other settings. In this we have the drones to find access and when updating these drones (after a mission) we could get into other places. A simple game from the beginning of the multi media game market could evolve into an actual behemoth. There is no fault by Drew Pictures (the developer). They might have moved on to bigger and better things. Yet there are a few elements in this game that are still rarely found in todays games. The publisher Spectrum HoloByte was ‘dissolved’ in 1998, but someone might still have the IP. And here lies the opportunity for the developer who has a clue (so to speak). 

A game that seems like a mere month of development time (mere weeks at this time, as the wheel doesn’t need reinventing).

That is what the ‘big’ boys like Microsoft seemingly forgot about. The IP is there, the IP when tweaked becomes a new product. No people like Phil Spencer give us things like “Microsoft will release more Xbox games on other platforms – “I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not’””. We were given this mere hours ago, all whilst we were also given “Microsoft is killing off Windows 11 Store’s no-download Instant Games (Arcade)” contradictions and added we were given “Microsoft open to more studio acquisitions, partnering with Chinese publishers” as I see it, they merely need a foothold for services as their hardware is rejected. In the meantime (in this blog) I added near free IP (for non-Microsoft systems) and The innovative designers can have a go at them, whist Microsoft (a personal view) keeps on fumbling the ball. 

I gave the notion of available IP at least 3 years ago. In the meantime we have not seen anything brilliant from Microsoft. OK, the flight simulator is absolutely brilliant. That must be said, but it is for a niche market and rightly so. Yet the larger Microsoft games are dangerously faltering. In this I am referring to Bethesda (Fallout and Elder Scrolls series). We are given “Hundreds of Bethesda video game workers, who work on titles like Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls, are going on strike across the country. Workers in Maryland and Texas are walking off the job, claiming that the company has failed to address their remote work concerns at the bargaining table, and has begun outsourcing quality assurance work without the union’s agreement.” (Source: Inverse). Not a few, the mention of hundreds is a setting that will push back a whole range of projects and That could spell trouble for Microsoft. They bought this software house in 2020 for $7,500,000,000 and I winder what they have to show for it. Trouble is stirring in the houses of Microsoft and I don’t think it ends there. What are seemingly knee jerk actions (might be the impression that the media gives us) and that is never a good thing. So far Microsoft is (as I personally see it) the larger culprit in this. Only yesterday we were given “The “biggest Starfield update yet” is coming next week with over 100 fixes plus graphical improvements for NPCs and space sightseeing”. You see, the game launched over a year ago (September 2023) and we still see these message? Over 100 fixes? And there is Redfall, another Bethesda game where we are given (a year after release) “The story and characters are extremely forgettable, and the environments risk feeling lazy as a consequence of its own gimmick – there’s only so much hazy red skyline I can take. Redfall is technically bland and unimpressive, yes, but that somehow only highlights its unrefined charm.” Two triple A titles and they are both regarded as huge flops. In the meantime I laid out (in that same timeline) half a dozen games here for the innovative (aka non-Microsoft) designers. Half a dozen does not make me better, but I feel certain more creative. And in light of Iron Helix. It is not my design, but I improved a whole range of issues that the makers couldn’t consider in the day they made the game. A 80486 PC with 640KB does not go far, and now we can improve on a good idea a lot, making this an exercise in new IP as it becomes an innovative idea, or altered to the largest degree making it new IP and we could alter a few more parts (including the start narrative) giving us dozen’s of games with a larger prerequisite (optionally on the Amazon Luna, Nintendo Switch or the PS5 or PS5pro) all systems with a track record and that could entice Tencent To seek out the three makers I mention here. So Microsoft can partner with whomever they want, but their presentations might be lacking a few items. Even a few days ago I opted a new niche for Apple (and the Apple Vision Pro) which I made a mere 5 days ago in ‘The easy lesson’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/09/the-easy-lesson/). A mere idea, because that was all it was. Yet I got this in less than an hour. So where are the ‘successful’ ideas by Microsoft? Perhaps they filed it on a Solarwinds server?  No matter, Sony can pick up that slack, if not them then perhaps Nintendo, Amazon or Tencent. If all things fails there is a chance that Apple could fill up the gap that Microsoft left. It’s all competitive, true?

Innovation is for whomever sees it and can bring that idea to the others. A wallet is nice but wallets don’t speak and that is the lesson that some never learned. They all believe that ‘money talks’ is for real, but without an idea it becomes meaningless. That is how I see “Microsoft is killing off Windows 11 Store’s no-download Instant Games (Arcade)” and I am not attacking that issue. You try and you could fail. Nintendo did that with the WiiU, but from those ashes the Nintendo Switch was born and that is at present the second best system they ever had. 

Have a great day, It’s Friday here now.

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September 4, 2023 · 19:37

It’s a game Jim.

Yup, I just went there and as it is about starfield I feel correct in going there. You see, I might have given correct (or incorrect) voice to a foundational issue, or issues. Yet I am not playing that game. So I cannot say one way or the other and here IGN comes in. You see they have been a clear voice for a long time. 

Not everyone likes IGN, but together with Eurogamer they are a clear voice and there are a few thing you need to know, things given to us (at https://www.ign.com/articles/starfield-review) aptly named ‘Starfield Review’. This does not give us that the other voices of review are suddenly wrong, but this is new IP. Things will go bump in the night. One thing that stood out was “Even after about 70 hours there are major quest-lines I haven’t even touched, and others I barely began. I’m eager to go back and finish a lot of those up now that I’ve completed the main story.” Did you make that small jump? ‘Even after 70 hours’? This makes Starfield surpass Skyrim by a fair amount. There are matters of concern when you see “In typical Bethesda fashion, that main quest isn’t terribly flexible in how you resolve the situations it thrusts you into. Your options here are, for the most part, about picking whether you want to be a boy scout for whom a good deed is its own reward, a wise-cracking mercenary who asks to be rewarded after doing a good deed, or an all-business mercenary who demands to be paid up front to do the good deed.” This doesn’t make the game, bad, lousy or lacking. It is merely an approach to RPG, one that Bethesda had done for the longest of times and they have done it well. This is not an apology, but I do believe in fair play and I do not hate Bethesda, I merely hate stupid acts and Starfield is not necessarily a act of stupidity, so adjustments are required and I am making them. There are still too many technical issues reported by all manners of media and that is just a big no-no in beta stage or later, but that is a cross Bethesda and Microsoft will have to carry for some time. Such is life. 

Still, the quote “There’s a storyline that felt very Boys from Brazil-inspired, as well as numerous related quests about hunting down war criminals and banned technology that pose ethical quandaries to reconcile. You can join up with the Crimson Fleet pirates and dive into a life of smuggling and general space crime, or take up the mantle of a legendary pirate hunter” is showing us the foundation of a space RPG that most are looking for and that matters, because it is about the game and the gamers, not about Bethesda perse. None of this shows the meltdown vlogger to be wrong or incorrect. I am merely looking at other parts to the degree a non Starfield gamers can. Just as I did not play Redfall. We give ourselves limits (some on principle), but we all have limits, even I have them and that combines with the need to remain fair gave me the push to write this part. So if you are an Xbox thingamajig you need to make up your mind and as such you should read the IGN review. They have always been fair on games and that counts, for me it does. IGN also had some negatives to report, but to see that you will have to red the article, you see, it might not matter to you. Some people love walking the streets of a place, just like they set the town of Chorrel to mind and we get that, any RPG fan would. So are some parts actually negatives, or merely the hassle of a gamer? Your guess is as good as mine. Even Microsoft’s own Windows Central slapped Starfield, who knew. But there will always be haters and non-accepting gamers of the RPG field and it gets weirder, for some reason any Elder Scrolls lover will often never love Fallout and now Starfield. This happens. They are not haters, but there is one universe, their RPG universe and I reckon that Fallout and Starfield will have their own love connection to THEIR game. This too is the world of RPG and we need to recognise it if we want to get along with these people. No matter how we slice it, thanks to IGN we see that there is a lot more to Starfield than the mere complaints I have seen in over a dozen sources. I believe it is only fair I show that part to you too. It is a fair play approach to often non aligned views.

Enjoy the new week. 

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June 14, 2023 · 23:50

The cross over

Yes, we have all seen it. Episodes where one crosses over in the other. It happens in gaming too, but it is seemingly more rare there. Yet what happens when we take advantage of this? An example is Azura’s Star. An item that has the ability to be massively powerful if you use it right. And there is the nag. Due to some constraints that is almost impossible and there is no fault, no blame. The fact that this game still has a hold on people after its release date of 11.11.11, almost 12 years later is nothing to be sneered at. Bethesda has earned the right to its legendary status. The fact that most of us (me included) would love to replay Fallout 3 on a PS5 shows that there is a lot Bethesda has to be proud of. So what is this about?

Consider that we would be able to build a charging station for Azura’s star. It is not instant, it will take hours, perhaps a day for Azura Star or a Grand Soul Gem, or a Black Soul Gem to get charged. Yet that stage offers a lot more than merely a powered gem. A setting where we have a mission to create a charging pedestal. Another mission that is all about functionality. Why no one considered it? I cannot tell, but in an earlier article a few years back, I created a magical duplicator for a castle (the one you could conquer in an expansion of Oblivion). A device, created and over time it would duplicate the item you had. In this one case Bows. As such it would take increasing more time. A hunting bow would take 30 minutes and a glass bow would take several hours. But once the stations are filled. The guards on the walls could upgrade whatever bow they had to a much more powerful bow. And it could be done with almost any item, but a sword would take another duplicating station. It was my idea to offer the setting where the guards as NPC’s would get upgraded to a much more able opponent and the items are locked to that NPC. When they die the weapons vanish. Swords, great swords, maces, Axes, Bows. You could create a real guard that was the fear of anyone trying to invade your castle. But how to create it? Well that was the easy part. It is how you can create a balance, or an imbalance that does not affect or benefit you beyond the normal scope. That is the key question. Even in the game I set up for the developer of Amazon Luna, PS5 and basically all non-Microsoft systems. Balance is still important. Too powerful and you damage the game, too weak and it is not worthy of pursuit. So there are settings we need to consider to make it worthy of chasing. And it falls into the realm of evolving NPC’s in your game. Because that will be a next step in most RPG games that would want to take their game a decade of more past its inception date. Charging stations are merely one step, a natural step, not even a gimmick. It came to mind, because if Fable will become the game whose trailer brought a smile to my face, we all need to up our games. This is how it should be. A powerful Microsoft implies that Sony, Amazon and Tencent will need to up their game too. As such I have set a lot online for all the non-Microsoft companies to take a learning from. More could and should be done. If this means that gaming in 2025 comes at an all time high, I will have done what I needed to do in my lifetime to progress gaming. A worthy endeavour if ever there was one. 

My brain had a much less noble thoughts on cross overs, but that does not matter. I was able to set it right and that is what matters to me. And crossovers could be applied nearly everywhere (as long as you own the IP). I made mention on this in the early development of the Luna and in my case the Luna key. So in this example that I am giving you, what happens when you have game 1 (System shock) and game two (Cyberpunk 2077) allows you to make a much more powerful firearm charger? I added another example in the past where Fallout Shelter could upgrade Fallout 4 (or whatever comes next) and that is interesting because you now have interaction between a mobile or tablet with a console. Gaming to a wider degree without compromising either. We need to consider these steps as we Crete new games. Ubisoft tried this with AC Brotherhood and did not get it quite right. Not wrong, but not quite right. Still it was worthy of trying and it did play out nice. Yet I believe they could have taken it much further. I personally believe that they were not serious enough. They didn’t create two games, merely one to add to the other. That wasn’t a great step, but it was their step to make. 

Often enough these additions are merely cosmetic, but they do not need to be. Crossovers are an option often ignored or denied for decent reasons, but what happens when we overcome that weakness?

Enjoy the day!

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January 10, 2022 · 15:46

Expanding story time

Yes, this happens. Sometimes we get more to a story, but when was that when it was expanded on the main system and not a DLC or expansion? When was the last time that you were confronted with an additional story in the main game? I reckon that most of us cannot clearly give an example. And when someone pushed a demo of the Unreal Engine v5 to YouTube showing us a broken down version of Riverwood, my mind went 145% on the body and thoughts came to mind. Now in this case it will not apply, because Riverwood is decently fresh in the mind of all gamers, but when they see the new (older looking) Riverwood they should catch on.

What happens when we add a few villages, not unlike Riverwood, off the beaten track, off the caught setting and all storylines by themselves. A setting that some might recognise in Spinalonga Island on Crete. It had its own story, but remains a ghost town even now. So what happens when we find the story, evolve the story in the now, solve the story, the riddles and the curse (or other reason for abandonment) and when we find refugees, traders and other people we could direct them to the empty village. Riverwood had a trader, a smith and an inn. There is no stopping us from adding shops, and it would fit the equation towards building the local economy as well. As I wrote earlier. Too many RPG’s are depending on US to build the economy. Yet what happens when the NPC’s are in a secondary stage that they too become drivers of an economy? What happens when traders build economies, adventurers do, mercenaries do and as such, some places will grow even larger, grow more and grow distinctive. In this we can set markers like you need to have certain ranks in the main quest, and side quests as well as levels of fame before your word is accepted, but at that stage your influence grows too. We need to realise that in RPG games we are NOT the machine, we are a mere cog that fuels the machine, but we are one in many cogs and that has never taken a larger stand in RPG games and that has been overlooked for too long. I do understand that some might state that this was not possible until the PS4pro. I believe that this is not merely that case. Game makers are too often in an iterative mode, we get more of the same (Far Cry, Assassins Creed), there are leaps forward (Fallout and Elder Scrolls), yet I believe that more could be done and I also believe that the PS5 now shows that more is possible. And it will not take long for the streamers to show that they are capable of more. And until these players consider that the main quest is nothing more than an outspoken side quest we will not see the leaps forward that RPG’s are capable of. The fact that I came up with TESVII: Restoration and the fact that I am still finding new ways to grease the system into other directions, directions that TESVI:unknown place might not even touch on is speculative, but not entirely impossible. A stage where we see that RPG makers are for a lot about more of the same (not their fault) is a little troublesome and When I wrote about a new RPG, a generation one that I summarised in ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which I wrote last September and even now I am still gaining more ideas that could grow that IP to larger stations is interesting to say the least. The side quests are merely one setting. Growing a virtual economy is another one, but it all sets the station where we have an RPG game where there are two stations. The station of you the player and you the influencer, both important, yet influencer we can become through skills, through power and through achievement and they all interact to some degree, and it is those influencer sides that give a much larger unknown to the game and how it shapes. We need to do it in that way, so that the system is free to evolve, if we merely have two settings with a clean and a deprived location (A Fable II event) we lose the plot, we will not see the impact of flourishing villages.

I believe that this is the expansive side of gaming, it fuels replayability and optionally dampens grinding. The last part is not a given or a real event, but could be the impact of influencers, it is merely a thought. So when did you see your last creativity on the sliding scale of something you haven’t figured out yet? A station that keeps me busy, why? I can tell you that I can, but for some reason I feel more comfortable with the thought “Because I have to”, and I am not sure why at present.

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January 8, 2022 · 03:28

When the plot thickens

This happens, it happens all the time. We notice it in movies and books, we sometimes face it in real life. There are moments when the plot thickens, but it tends not to happen in games and in RPG games fit rarely happens. There the NPC threat in singular directional, it always awaits your command, your action and your dialogue. So why is that?

It cannot be the technology, the technology was on par 1-2 generations ago. Is it gaming technology versus scripting? It could be, I am not the best source of information on this. 

We tend to see the Louis 14 approach in gaming, the world revolves around the gamer, it is like the missions. As the missions are lacking time needs, as the missions can be completed at YOUR convenience, we get to do it all. I think it is wrong and I think we need to alter our perceptions here. We cannot do everything, we can not please everyone and we cannot be everywhere. Just like good RPG games need an economy, it needs a transitional stage, it also needs  servicing stage. Mercenaries and guards that do take charge. Games like Shadow of Mordor invented and realised a nemesis system, I reckon that was a real step forward in gaming. So why did we not adjust RPG gaming to be more challenging? Was it that much of a leap? 

There is nothing like a stage that has no opposition, it becomes docile, it becomes a stage of non-stress. So what happens when you are there but so is the stage of mercenaries that can finish your jobs, making you lose fame and more important making you lose credibility. A stage we have never faced before. There is always the more seasoned adventurer, this happens. Yet in gaming we do not see that part. We are denied the challenge. Why is that?

When you create a career and you grind the same levels, we think we are being clever. Yet what happens when you lose out to a lot more? What happens when another adventurer becomes the famous one? Not in a multi player environment, but a single player environment that has its own nemesis system, not merely opposition, but a setting of peers and antagonists that become more that a mere hassle. It sets your career mode in a mode of bland anticipation. A station where you are not the best thing since sliced bread, you are merely the last resort and starting the game out like that is not the worst idea either. It shows the player that they need to be on their A-game all the time. And so far the RPG games have not been facilitating in that degree. Why is that?

It cannot be that I am the only one thinking in this direction, it cannot be that technology stayed behind. I believe that Bethesda pushed RPG into mainstream gaming and left a few things out. It is not their fault because their Elder Scrolls and Fallout series are pretty amazing. Yet by pushing that into mainstream they left something out and we all lost a little, it is a shame and at present there is no one replacing or contesting them. I pushed a few ideas to the surface in earlier articles, yet I also overlooked that part in RPG games. I apologise and I am trying to alter what I have at present to add that setting to future games, or at least inspire others to reconsider what they have and there is a lot that could be done. Will it? I hope so, but at present there is no way to tell, so we will have to see who picks this gaming direction up first.

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November 25, 2021 · 21:25

Height of the threshold

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?

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September 6, 2021 · 21:20

Presented choices

There is a flow in two directions, it is in most of us, it is stronger in the people who actively engage in critical thinking. It is often mistaken as ‘the devil’s advocate in us’ and I have made the same mistake. This is a dangerous place to be, not precisely dangerous, but hazardous. You see, we want to give ourselves time to mull things over and often that is good, nowadays with COVID, vaccines, lockdowns and other things happening at the same time it is hazardous. You see the media is no help, they are in it to create click bitches and stir flames, which gets them digital advertisement funds and traction. When you mull things over too many people are in a stage of making up their minds whilst the media is trying to cross them over to a field that benefits THEM and not the reader. Unless you are able to reject ALL media at a moments notice, that place you are in to mull things over goes from hazardous to dangerous and that is when things fall apart. The doubters get pushed into a place where they are slightly too uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to forcefully take a stand.

This matters as gaming is in a similar place, or better stated the gamer is in an RPG game and is left to mull things over in doubt on what to do. There is a correlation of inaction towards too much signals as well as no signals at all. The brain seems to find the stage of non-signals too unnatural. And that is the stage any new RPG will find themselves in.

In the past it was not an issue for the mere reason that technology was not ready, now that it is too many gamers expect there virtual life to signal them in a similar way and even as technology is there, the game makers are not. 

It is not a setting of what to do to make it fit, it becomes a stage of adjusting the gamer to the ‘new life’. I was reminded of that in the last two days as I was rewatching the Harry Potter series. In the third film we are given the choice between what is easy and what is right, which fits the storyline of Harry and his gang (plus owl). Gaming and real life tend to not have that question, yet I see a larger wave go towards ‘What is easy or what is pointless’ and that is not the bill, but it is a concept of the two choices seemingly given. The mind loves a choice, even a fictive (or virtual) one and that gets us in hot water. 

So whilst we await the Hogwarts Legacy game, we wonder what is in it. We tend to compare to the RPG games that were truly fantastic and there we see Skyrim and Witcher 3 being the larger stage. So will Hogwarts have the Harry Potter CCG as an element? It is extremely doubtful, but there is an internal need to get a new RPG with some Witcher 3 Gwent game. We would want to be able to have our own house decorated in OUR style of choice (Skyrim) and the list goes on. This pushes the needs towards pointless, yet where is the setting on what the line from gaming to pointless becomes and that line differs per gamer and that low range and high range of that line is a gap no smaller than the Gran Canyon and that makes for an awkward programming stage. The opposite side leads to easy and grinding which could spell an early death for any future RPG game, so where to go? Fable 2 had an awesome solution towards vocations (Forge, Bartender, gambling) but the stage becomes how to remain unique, have elements like mini games and larger ownerships without breaking the IP and that is not an easy task. Even Skyrim with its levels of grinding is so close to perfect that people still desire this game 10 years later. I myself had the game on PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One and optionally (hopefully) in 9 weeks and 3 days I will have the PS5 edition, optionally a little later as I face all kinds of budgets, but the message behind this is strong, a good game lasts a very long time and that is where the game makers need to be. I believe that the best option is set towards a trilogy solution. We can play, we can alter and we can circumvent. Alter is adding a CCG or mini game option. Instead of looting the same place with consistent time, we can have the CCG to make is smarter, the mini game to make us richer and a combination for investments. It takes the mind of grinding. The CCG element could give us cunning, intelligence and the cards we win could lead to unique items like clothing that are rewarding depending on the class we play. We could get rare items that we need to make special potions (like the golden cauldron in Harry Potter CCG), and the list goes on. In Fallout New Vegas we were given the useless Snow globes that is until we met a person who paid dearly for it. There are the Vault-boy bobbleheads in Fallout, so what can we do to create the part that adds value to the game?  That depends on the game maker, but the objective would soon become a race to avoid the pointless borderline. 

The second borderline is less visible. Metal Gear Solid got there and it was not their intent because the last game was magnificent to behold, yet they got there, the game had gotten too big and soon in the game you felt like you were in a stage where it felt pointless (it was not) the game was too big for its own design and even if you consider revamping the stages, at some point (ACT 3) you started to wonder what it was for. I got there a few times and I loved the game, so we need to design carefully and become weary of what signals we give the player, too many and the gamer seeks the easy route, that same route gets trodden on when there are no signals, so there needs to be enough signals to make it worth your effort.

I believe that we are due for more time based stories and the best way is to let the conversations with NPC’s progress that, but there too too many of those and the game gets to be regarded as pointless. So how to go about the presented choices? One option is to limit NPC’s to optionally give quests in a set of two parameters. The first is the day of the week and the second is a correlation of conversations with other people in town. It gets so that each town has optionally 2-3 side quests a day, so beside the main quests and storyline quests you can score new quests each day in one place, to throttle the over-quest danger we limit the chances we get to the pointless border. By having enough signals we also limit the dangers of people heading for the easy line and on top of that, if we create a random partition that directs all the quests to a day at the beginning of the game there is a chance that two players end up having very different experiences making all players more and more curious on what more is there and how to find it. 

There are more things to do, but this is enough for today, today was to address the dangers of the pointless borderline and that borderline is a lot more dangerous than you think. 

If you do not head that line you could prematurely kill your own game in month one, an eerie setting that no game maker would ever want to face. More importantly, it also shows how we are treated by the media in todays events and that tends to reverberate in us too. So when we escape towards games we really need to get that signal stopped as soon as possible, it is perhaps the one danger any RPG faces, we tend to push ourselves into our RPG games the way we were before we started that game, emotional baggage and all, we cannot really hope to stop ourselves, but we can demand that whatever RPG game we play takes that feeling away within the first 10 minutes of gaming. I reckon it is part of the success of Skyrim.

Have a great day!

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August 15, 2021 · 02:26

Mix and match

I was having a few thoughts on the matters that I have been writing on these last two days when a thought reappeared in me, I thought of it before, but now the idea was forming in a few ways. As my thoughts go it is best released in streaming games first. Others can and will have it too, but this is something that will take a few attempts to get right. You see, I love RPG games. Yet in all the years none of them EVER mixed the setting of Simulators with RPG’s, not that the RPG needs to become a simulator, but a setting where we train people around us. So in case you own a castle, you get to improve the ‘programming’ of the NPC. So as I see it, the approach is towards the use of deeper learning to ‘educate’ the guards. So you can imbue your bow and arrow skills on the guards on the high walls, you can imbue your weapon skills on the patrolling guards and so on. It has never been done and it could open up a lager playing field. Consider that we can train our troops, but the skills are also transferred to 75% of your skills, or the maximum they already have to all other NPC’s? So it is no longer merely about the level of the opponent, their skill level will up the game for all gameplay in an RPG, so why did no-one think of this? Perhaps they did, I do not know. Yet with the evolution of deeper learning (what some erroneously call AI) this is no longer a thought, there are several ways that NPC’s can evolve in any RPG and it gives us a much better game to look at, so why was this not yet done? I am not accusing anyone, merely asking. If I can come up with a TV series, a mini series, a movie and several games, I remain amazed how the others are empty of new ideas and they are merely hiding behind sequels. OK, not all, Guerrilla games is one of the few exceptions. We see remastered games (I am happy about some of them), we see sequels adapted for the next generation consoles, which is nice too. Yet real new IP remains largely absent, a circular movement surrounding 2 decades of gaming. I do not think it is all wrong, I myself opted to a few parties to remaster their old games, actually it was remaster and upgrade severely towards the new systems and there is a lot that is available out there. Yet how many real upgrades have some RPG’s received? Again, not an accusation, yet when you consider that we know Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. Now consider that I got the idea of empty holo-tapes that could be used to add to the story and the functionality of the character before Fallout 76 was released, which was almost 4 years ago. So am I the only one thinking out of the box to increase the level of games and gameplay? One would think that if you pay a group of people well over 7 billion, one would imagine that they would be far ahead of me, but that does not seem to be the case. 

Yet this is not about pointing fingers, or blaming people. It is merely an idea I was having to increase the value and power of a game. We are all gamers and some of our ideas are whacky, some are brilliant, some can bridge a massive gap between the game maker and the game player, we cannot blame the maker for not thinking of EVERY corridor, that’s where we come in. And this stage is more easily adapted in streaming, because streamers are in a stage where they have one environment to consider, the one that goes to ALL players, so they do have a few advantages and I reckon they need to home in on those advantages. There is no real benefit to have the same Ubisoft game on all four consoles, yet a streamer and a console? That could pan out the be a very different cattle of fish. 

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