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Truth be told

There is a small issue. First of all I love Frontier games. I have been a fan of Elite since 1984. That love still remains. And when I got Planet Zoo on the Xbox One, I loved every bit of it, it was a nice journey into gaming. So when I heard its successor was out, I never hesitated. But here we get issues and issues is a small setting, optionally nothing. Lets show you the stage:

It is the second run on the career. First we get Locate the Warthog Habitat. Which took seconds, just look to your zoo, soon in and soon you have it, nothing too fancy and it works, but then you need to Locate and select an Exhibit, so here the issue starts. After 10 minutes I was unable to do this. And as you see, there is an abundance of choices, but what to do? The issue is that after 5 minutes, the ‘educator’ should have said something according to the lines of “Are you having problems with this? Go to any exhibit and now press ‘whatever needs to be pressed’ or even illuminate the buttons/options in an illuminating colour like ‘gold’”. As I see it, the game has a lot more to offer, but in this stage the younger gamers will abandon the game, which would be a shame as the game looks truly inspiring, as much as the first game was.

So I feel a little sad that this was never discovered in the final testing. So when we get to that latter part Select a Lion and enter Animal Camera, I wonder why an earlier option Walk through the park and see what the visitors see wasn’t there (at present), and this is the second stage, the first stage was great, drive around in Africa and take a few snapshots. I had a blast and it felt like it was a great successor and it was a great look. So what went wrong, because either I am doing something massively wrong and the game didn’t pick up on this, or as I see it, they failed in educating the gamer. It could go either way, but I am not stopping this game. I loved the first game and I feel certain that this hiccups will be resolved. Perhaps the tester did this on a Monday morning, whatever the reason. This should’t be happening to a software house with decades of experience, but that might be merely my view on the matter.

Have a great day today

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What went wrong?

That is the hidden question in all this. You see, I have had my suspicions in several directions. It is the outcome of Business people getting in bed with art, art is a different stroke, it adheres to different parameters and whilst these people are gracing several directions in gaming, they forget that art is the compelling setting. There is no business in that. It comes from excellence in art that makes games great and Bethesda was on the right side, but then Microsoft bought it and it seemingly went down the basement after that. So whilst we see all kinds of excuses on lag times and latencies. Why are they there? Gamers bought the big systems Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and whatever Microsoft has. These systems are there to deal with the user requirements and it has worked since the the Playstation 2. So why? Because someone stated that we all want to game together? Well, for some people this is true and there is greatness in team play (when the cheaters are away) but the new generation is taught that cheating is fine because they all do it and that is where the game goes amok.

So as we happily gamed away in whatever Bethesda and Bioware and Santa Monica Studios brought us, someone thought it was a good idea to listen to Business applicants.

So in my previous example (yesterday) I played on the Bethesda Elder Scrolls idea. Why? Simple, they have created a lore bigger than most can conceive but there is a similar setting for their Fallout setting and there is lore for the God of war series (which is based on history) so when we look at the fitter games one more adds the setting, it is Guerrilla games. Their Horizon series has the ability to match a ‘new’ storyline in greatness and it is set to ‘our’ future so there are options. But the need for more gaming or better said greater gaming is essential.

Today I was considering the old expression bread and circuses (from Juvenal 55AD) the modern day world used this setting to ‘divert’ the population into some stage of sleepiness. We we’re all awake, but we accepted the bread and circuses setting because a lot of us do not really have a choice. But the game of life changed. Bread is no longer free, it costs and now it is costing more. We have the circuses on one side (in the United States it is called politics), we have Television (whilst the cost of receiving the entertainment is rising) and we have our actual gaming and that is the exclusion of all things. And we are willing to pay the $100 for a game like that and in case of Skyrim it had probably been the best investment ever. I bought several copies (PS3, PS4, Xbox360) and with over 3000 hours it was well worth the setting. But this might change as hardware is reaching new heights. So we might lose a lot on the PS6 and the Switch 2 (optionally the Switch 3) but we have to consider this and as such the RPG style gaming brings the best entertainment for its value and as I see it, the artsy people need to be in charge and the business people need to wire their lips solidly shut. Because what comes requires the focus of people who want a great experience and the Elder Scrolls has the most lore, but they are not alone. I am not sure about why ‘EA Is Closing BioWare and Canceling the Next Mass Effect’ I have suspicions, but there are shoddy speculations at best. Still, somewhere last year I created a new setting for ME5 and I took an approach (likely) no one even considered. I combined ME5 by adding ME4 and ‘repairing’ all I thought was wrong with it (there was a lot) but the idea was great and as such it had to survive. But I am aware that some people state “it’s impractical as a commercial blueprint” but there is where I differ, gaming is art, it has no commercial value. As an example I want to offer Edvard Munch the scream, it is now valued at $120 million.

It was a mere $83,700 in 1900. That is the effect of art and not everyone likes it. I wouldn’t pay anywhere near that for the scream. But the icons of Gaia, that is worth something to me. I even saw in my mind note blocks of Aether, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Eleuthia, Hades, Hephaestus, Minerva and Poseidon, note blocks with the logo on every page, optionally their embroidering of these icons. I am a gamer, that is what I value and I reckon many gamers (in the millions) see this in the game they play.  It was what the business people never got, they merely got where the money was, or where they think the money was. But there is the crunch, a good game can survive on its own. Oblivion proved that with the remaster and I had no problems buying that for the PS5. That game was the reason I bought the Xbox360 in the first place. So there is one ‘response’ I have an issue with “Quantity alone doesn’t guarantee success. Padded or repetitive content often feels worse than a tighter experience. Older engines eventually hit technical limits (performance, tools, stability). Not every game is easy to expand, and endless post-launch support isn’t free or infinite. Player expectations also matter—some people prefer finishing a game and moving on.” I agree that repetitive content is not a solution, as such I came up with the creation of New Kvatch and the size difference was to ensure it would all fit. The sections that might be the same is the overwhelming settings that most places are there, but in this setting (a few centuries after Skyrim) we have a new stage. We have a new industrial age and it is run by the great great grand daughter of Jeanne Frasoric. Which will ensure new lore amounts as well as inverting the items you used to collect. The destroyed shrines need to be rebuilt and items have to be retrieved, you will also need to find someone to head the shrine. And the challenge becomes how and where. With the exception of Azura, which will always be in Skyrim. Some will be out in the open, some will be underground. And it is up to the player to decide, yet we might agree that Nocturne is not a place that we want out in the open. And as we face 5 (or 6) locations, depending on where we are with Morrowind. The gamers can explore, can replay old missions and whilst chapters might be ‘relocated’ except the Mages council which will always be in Cyrodiill we get a totally new concept of gaming, and in all this we have a a new way of gaming and replayability will be a new setting, so there is as I see it, no such thing as ‘repetition’ this is up to the player and they might set the game in new and interesting ways. A way that was always the main intent of any RPG video game and as such the big makers will get the big dollars, considering that Skyrim has 65 million copies sold, there is every indication that many will consider this title and after the setting of too many business types hiding behind lag times and latency of the hardware, someone might wake up and consider the setting that this is a one player game. But they are not alone, Guerrilla games might also make consideration (after Horizon 3) to make a ‘global’ challenge and there is still the Mass Effect setting and Fallout is not out of the picture either.

We have many directions gaming could be taken into and I love my RPG gaming, but I do recognize that there are many GTA5/GTA6 fans. As such they could create something that people can enjoy for a decade, the fact that it was created in 2013 makes that clear.

So I cannot tell you where to go next. You need to trust the game makers you pour your heart in, that is the best advice I can give you. So, have a great day and enjoy gaming, or get not gaming if possible.

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The claim of game time

We all see it, we all endure it and in some cases the game makers think that 100 hours is forever, then they add a few tidbits and they think they are saved, which is nice, but in this dat on internet ad almost instant fame through Tik Tube and Youtok these maker get a nasty surprise. Now I don’t want to do this, but the same goes for plenty of RPG games. When I play an RPG I look around in places and admire the views they bring, but I realise that not everyone is like that ad one of the first ‘adjustments’ were made by me in early 2014. My mind loved Oblivion and I thought that adding Skyrim to this might be an excellent way to make 400 hours into 2000 hours. But the mind didn’t stop there so as I ‘designed’ this new setting we got Elsweijr and Valenwood to the mix. In my mind there was a unbalanced settings there (I don’t want to call it a civil war, as this is a setting for Skyrim) But this setting gave me a few ideas into Creating New Kvatch. Not a simple mission, because a city is the work of a lifetime and this was done through labour force, so as you create solutions to missions you were rewarded with a few slaves (call them unpaid labor),which gives you the burden of creating housing, produce local hands (for farming) and the need to upstage it all, this stage he’d three stages and you had to find books. You could find the common books on building a  town (brick and iron), or you could find rare books on Dwemer metallurgy (which gives you the Dwemer doors) and you could find advanced books on Whitestone mining. So, you might find a book von moonstone mining and from there the moonstone doors were created and you could find Daedric books, as such there were paths, but there was a catch, you get ONE option, so whilst there is a need to find the books, the choice selected is matching your selection and there is no cheating here. These books are rare to find and you could be playing for 300 hours finding one of the rare books. But the town that was created would make you a council member and whilst you complete missions that give you more and more slaves (volunteer miners) and you need to advance some of them to be overseers or even chief smiths because these are the people that get you the doors. And there is the need for more and directed more. A simple setting that you get by finding quarries and there are a few in the land. And these quarries will get you the stones you need to complete the towns, so whilst Stone might be readily available, White stone that gets you an Ayleid look are not early achieved. So while you are ‘involved by getting the doors and entrance created, the rest is automatically done and when you have an pretty workforce the city comes alive in a few years. It will have all the niceties of smiths, grocers, herbalists and whilst you do not need to do anything for that, they only stay if the city has a clear chance. Now consider Cyrodiill 9 times the size, Skyrim roughly the same size and there would be Valenwood and Skyrim and now we get  the other side. You get one dark brother hood, one fighters guild, one mages guild (which would always be in cyrodiill) and one thieves guild. So consider that some say that Skyrim is about 37 square kilometer, Cyrodiill is about 450 square kilometer and now we add Valenwood and Elsweijr masking them an adjusted 200 square kilometer. Now consider the setting of an RPG with 700 square kilometer challenge and that will keep people busy for years. Because that is the setting we need to realise. Funds are drying up and people can only afford 1-3 games a year. Wouldn’t you want to do everything to make YOUR game the one they chose? And the time of creating viral content on YouTube is almost over. And you can remain in denial all you want (especially if you see yourself as the content creator) but as I see it, RPG’s have a decent chance in all this and we start seeing people with writers block, they need a stage where they can shine and whilst there is a winning team (Bethesda made a massive hit with Skyrim and whilst it was created for the PS3 and Xbox360, it kept people happy for over two generations, which is quite the achievement and now they face the amazing Horizon games and both of them are making quite the splash, so consider that you could try to make something that surpasses it all, or you could set a new frontier and the idea of combining Oblivion, Skyrim and the Valenwood and Elsweijr (optionally after the next installment is added) that is one gaming side that will find a massive appeal in the elder scrolls fans. And as I see it time is running out, because whatever Horizon 3 brings will decide the taste of gamers for some time. And whilst we see all these fake AI’s telling us that 2026 is the biggest year in gaming so far with 5%-6% YoY growth, it is mere speculations, and they are decent speculations, but no one saw the oil setting and that price, or the impact of Bitcoin miners, hardware us getting more expensive data s getting more expensive and that comes before the prices of food and drink and that will cost. Wallop in the next two years. Things will not remain the same and you either get ahead of the curve or you fall behind. Bethesda has the setting that they have the IP to make it work and whilst there would be some redesign, there is a chance that they could pull it off and make millions of gamers happy at the same time, because whatever they do could impact all Skyrim and all Oblivion players and that is one hell of an audience. But the truth is that they are no longer alone in this field and consider the question If you could only afford one game in the next 2 months, would that be Elder Scrolls VII, or Horizon III? And how will that impact your gaming and that is before the Harry Potter fans come out and go nuts over Hogwarts legacy 2? Yes some will be able to afford them all, but that group is shrinking fast, much faster than these so called analysts are seeing and whilst they are staking up the reasons for the why, the real deal is that funds are depleting and that is a hard pill to swallow.

So you have a great day and consider the question that will be on the front of your mind soon enough. GTA6, Elder Scrolls VII, Fallout 5, Hogwarts legacy 2 or Horizon 3 and you could only afford one, which one would you pick? I wonder if that is what Sony saw when they decided to abolish physical games? I actually don’t know but there is more behind their reasoning.

Time for my brekkie.

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The new you

That is at times the setting. It the you you see the old or the new one? As a relic of the past, I tend to remain the old me, but that is still not always a given. You see, we (you, me and all others) tend to hold up a mirror, so we can show others what we see, but we tend to not look at ourselves. It is perfectly natural to do this, there was one person in the past who did just that, but he was but one (and his name was Narcissus) but one is not a steadfast number for any level of comparison. So why are we so driven to compare ourselves? That is a question I had when my mind went back into comparison mode reverting to game design. I had the idea in the past to create an RPG game mostly based in Olympus. But I wasn’t given my mind towards game mechanics. That ends to be a waste off space, because if we design it now we tend to fall into the area of Bethesda and that is a losing field. This is not on Bethesda, their engine is now 2 decades old and for any game to stay standing to this effect is quite the achievement. No, I was contemplating different matters, storyline matters. Because I truly believe the slogan that FX gave us “the story is everything” and most of us can live with that thought, especially gamers and that is also the hidden trap. How can you create a storyline that holds you in place for over a decade without grinding? It is an honest a question, because after the umpteenth time I play Skyrim that is exactly the setting we face. I created the setting of Elder Scrolls VII (now VIII) and in my mind the setting is still enticing. The map of Skyrim is almost the same, but to do this we need Cyrodiill to be about 900% larger so if the map is 5 by 5 miles, it will now need to be 15 by 15 miles. It all make the imperial city almost 900% of the original size and they need connecting. For the setting then I came up with Elsweijr and Valenwood being connected, so consider that setting. Playing a Skyrim side of game with these three parts connected and now whatever Bethesda is creating added to all that. And that becomes the main stage of what Skyrim used to be.

So, now we get to the ‘now’ and we consider that Olympus is that overwhelmingly large, but the larger buildings are the buildings of Zeus and Poseidon, with buildings connected to it all for the other gods and only Hades has his own place in the underworld. So the Olympian gods were Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. So, they do not mention Hades, which is the lovely attached place and that place has fallen into disrepair. So here you are (yes you) entering a place you know not where and you have to figure it out and in the meantime The story evolves and that takes a new kind of storyline, so whilst you think that they are your size, that is not really the setting because Ares is (almost) 9 foot tall and these three big cats are larger than that, so you need to adjust your way of thinking, So we get layer upon layer of gameplay and there is where we are and we are thrown into a game where classic works are the setting of the time and it is not just the Olympic gods you need to worry about, because the had incarcerated the Titans in Tartarus and this is the setting that you face. They are about to realise that their ‘slayers’ are no longer there and whilst we might ‘rally’ behind that thought, but their release will wreck whatever works you have now. So how you have a ‘gameplay’ that favors stealth a whole lot. And the defence setting are about to wake up and that is the setting we get and whilst all are doable, the idea is that they are not the same way and as such you get a diverse setting and in this game your gender is closer set, because the man can not openly enter the worlds of Hera, Athena, Aphrodite or Hestia. Except when you are Hermes (the mailman no less and there is no two knocking, but it does allow for some leniency in the game, and that is where the stealth comes in, but getting it all up and running again is the key and also the hindrance in the game. As such the messenger has a solemn side and also the thing not the whole game, because the game is not about my being clever, it is about creating a game that is true to life (as far as that is possible) but for now it is my conundrum to figure out, because there is no gem of “Just like” the other settings and that is the challenge for me.

But it also favors the solution. You see, the realms of Zeus and Poseidon were impacted by pollution and as such we get a new game, one that prefers the settings of are environmentalists and conservationists. A side we never contemplated before and Hades is surrounded by the billions of dead souls, so it is wrecked and in all that we need to set a stage where their souls are the fuel that gives them all power and that becomes the challenge and whilst we look at that we ar creating new (optional epic) storylines according to the works of Homer, Virgil and Dante Alighieri, but there were others and that is the challenge to stay true to their course and incorporate it into the game (luckily for me their works no longer fall into the realm of IP protection) but I wanted to create an idea that does evolve according to how YOU play the game, which is an almost unheard setting before and whilst you wonder on how the world of Bethesda impacts this world, consider that between the elated and the damned is a setting of servitude and that makes the game settable to your hand and whilst you want to consider that, the game has an overreaching interaction (like it is its own god) into the gameplay that you embrace making you do things over and over before you get it right, it is the Olympic version of guiding the player and that is the challenge, finding the two sides of the same coin and letting that play out, so whilst you see changes, the game is also impacted by the pollution that has gone unchecked (until now) and that is how the gods could reemerge (except Hades who is bogged down in souls) and whilst we get to become a ‘SIM’ to alter the game the ‘SIM’ gets to become self aware and as Olympus regains its own setting we can create a game here the gods return and these are levels of achievement that the game ‘rewards’ to create a setting that evolves Olympus and as such the world as a whole. I still haven’t worked out all the details, because I am driven towards a totally new engine and that is the challenge, because that unique challenge will entice gamers (optionally millions of them) to correct others into trying these settings. But that is my challenge and perhaps one for the record books, into a streaming RPG that holds the key to a lot of new players.

And I reckon that if you know something of the old gods, the world of Hephaestus and Hades are adamant in creating a new Olympus. And it is not about merely creating a new game, it is a way to hold everyone in front of a mirror and saying this is how YOU achieve this and I reckon that this becomes the setting for what is now ‘regarded’ as PS6 terrain.

So have a great day and it is time to create a new setting regarding whatever rules the sense of reason in the United States (according to the Sydney Morning Herald) whilst we see “The US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the consumer price index climbed 3.7 per cent in September from a year earlier, exceeding the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg and leading Wall Street traders to boost bets that the Federal Reserve will need to lift interest rates again before the month is over. What’s notable about the report, besides the fact that it shows inflation is accelerating, is that it reveals consumer prices are rising faster for rural America, gaining 4 per cent over the past 12 months, than for city dwellers (up 3.6 per cent). This has been the case since right after the start of the Iran war in late February. Not only that, but the gap between rural and urban inflation this year is the widest since 2022, just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” This is important as it kinda reflects on the ‘Hoekse en Kabeljauwse twisten’ (Dutch) where we consider  “The conflict between the Hooks and the Cods was a struggle between various factions within the elite of the County of Holland. Both the nobility and the towns were involved. The conflict raged intermittently from the second half of the 14th century until the end of the 15th century. Events that took place between May and September 27, 1350, led to the first phase of these “feuds.”” This is what a class war feels like and the United States is seemingly heading that way, but not to worry, that event lasted from 1345 until1492 and as I see it, the United States has a mere 10 years at the most (if even that much) to sort out its mess, at that point there pointless way of life comes at an end and I think the people who want to avoid that could be playing a game on the shaping of a new Olympus. When people want to correct me on all kinds of matters that it was not based on classes, and they would be right, because it was not a class war in the modern Marxist sense, though social and economic tensions played a role and a big one, making it (in my view a class war) and whilst some adversely react, the setting lasted almost 140 years and a lot of the document that mattered are lost, but now consider that as given “the fact that it shows inflation is accelerating, is that it reveals consumer prices are rising faster for rural America, gaining 4 per cent over the past 12 months” and as I see it, this is a class war. The meteorites versus the rivals and in the 1400’s the metrolites were considering extreme hunger as the ruralites had growing the foods. Doesn’t that sound familiar? But in this day and age LA has 3,869,089 and New York has 8,584,629 people. Over 12 million, so how will you feed them? You either meet the difference and split that, or you go hungry and I reckon that this US administration has absolutely zero intent (or experience) to split differences and as I see it, they are losing allies a lot faster than they are ready for. And as we now see (to hours ago) ‘Trump pauses new Russia sanctions passed by Congress amid deepening row with Ukraine’ there is a larger setting in all this and whilst these people are ignoring the real threat to the United States, they are playing footsie with Russia? In my (possible wrong) look, it seems that the United States is losing several grounds of funding it has and it is about to get worse. I get there by the Guardian text “Donald Trump has put on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause on the legislation passed by both chambers was in the national interest.” Since when is a pro Russian setting national interesting the United States? The only thing that makes sense if the United States is about to enter a state of Insolvency, but I am telling you upfront that this is my view and it could be incorrect, but when we see these class wars come, we could face other settings, but the setting that the Commonwealth and the EU might be safer with China in the mix is a lot more safe than anything the United States could falsely promise (something it has done so a few times in the last year)

And I merely wonder if we aren’t better of playing a video game until it blows over, or until the electricity runs out. Because at that point, your memory is all that remains, it you could feed it that is. It becomes a simple setting of the new you and that will be a hard pill to swallow, because we were pushed into consumerism for all the greedy reasons corporations had and that is now coming to an end. Have a great day today.

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Is there plus plus?

An idea escaped me today. I might have had it before, but it stood in my brain rather still. You see I am playing Skyrim for the (fifth or seventh time) I played is when it was released on 11.11.11 and a few times then. This time was because o wanted to see if it was so much better in 4K (I only recently got a 4K TV) and I am having a ball, but there is a lot that is merely passing the time. I played it too often, as such I know what is coming. But wouldn’t it be great to ave a surprise in this case? As such I was thinking that if you do it again and you deal with Alain Dufont but you also need to deal with the quest by the elderly alchemist Frida. If you have also done the mission that Bothela from the Hags cure give you, you could get a letter from an additional mission (somewhere, somehow) which will be a mission you have never done before. (Like getting 5 Briar Hearts) you could add at least 9 missions to them and optionally a few more. The idea will make you consider every mission you have done and whilst replaying the game, you will get a few more missions. Don’t worry Skyrim had plenty of mission, there is a chance I have never seen a mission (I doubt it, but never mid the chance) and in a game this large the surprise of ‘I never had this mission before’ is a very welcome change of pass. Such missions are also possible in Horizons and I reckon they should be added through the side missions. Consider even one RPG, the idea comes like a merit giving extra in any game. There could be an extra to these missions (for any city you have a house) which would given you an optional bauble (a cosmetic extra) for your place, like extra tapestry (Markath) or a painting (Solitude), the extras that you could receive are numerous. And I am merely giving Skyrim as an example. The same thing could apply for a Fallout game or an Assassins Creed game. It opens up the benefit of replaying that game and it is important to make is as a NewGame++ option. Because as I see it, there was nothing wrong with the original games, thesis merely a little boost into getting the heart pumping towards that game. It could be that Kesh the Clean (Peryite) could given you an extra mission if you became a champion of Peryite and did one additional mission if you had given a gold coin to Lucia in Whiterunb. The possibilities are numerous but that extra will give the player a few small surprises in a game that they didn’t see coming and that is part of the charm or Skyrim (or any other RPG game). 

So as it is now time to emulate a sawmill, I take my leave from you all. Have a great day and enjoy the world we still have for now as President Trump is demanding the EU releases its diesel reserves. I reckon that things in the United States are getting worse quickly, so while Al Jazeera gives us “The European Union “fully rejects” a US demand to release emergency diesel stocks as the fuel’s price soars in the United States and elsewhere amid the war with Iran.” I reckon that the end is nigh in the United States. I always saw this coming, but the bully tactic to someone’s reserves is a new one. I reckon that things are about to get really bad. So time for adjustments to a game to give people something to look forward to. So whilst some are giving us “It comes as US President Donald Trump says he may ask European countries to release diesel reserves as he considers banning US exports of the fuel” I reckon it is time for the Commonwealth (particular Canada) give the EU a larger advantage and watch the United States turn from the inside out. So lets see how much oil Australia could send the EU (the United Kingdom too) It might not be much, not sire how much LNG and oil Australia drills for, but I am all for seeing that way from the United States (if they got any) it is the only response that bully tactics invoke on me. 

Have a great day all.

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Perchance to dream 

At times I dream (yes, it happens) and whilst I was in the middle of a dream, the premise changed. I don’t know why or how. But it remember this dream, where it changed to was known to me. I had the dream several times in earl 90s. It was based on the 1987 Dungeon master by Faster Than Light games. It is now and has been forever the game dungeon master games were sized to. It is still in the forefront of my mind, but there are irregularities, the dream suddenly changed, but my memory of that part is gone, it happens and I am not sure I a the one to tell you, because the knowledge is likely forbidden. It might be because I was accessing a part of knowledge I was not allowed to access. But I am just speculating. What does matter is that I was accessing my past on games I had played and it is not a sealed matter. I saw Dungeon Master, but from there I went to SunDog and I think one other stop until I faced the game ShadowCaster, then I remembered the weakness in that game. It was cool and neat, but the setting was incomplete, it merely looked Cool. But the setting of a good game is an inert weighting, a sense of balance. There is only one superman, but even he was balanced out through weaknesses of his pwn planet (Kryptonite) and then he had a weakness in magic. (Perhaps the makers saw that as a presumptive weakness as they didn’t understand the magical world. 

So Shadowcaster was a partial good game, it was clear in some and weak in others. There is a ploy to wreak havoc as Grost (the last form you get) and when your health becomes too low, you changed into Maorin and heal a lot faster. But that setting is not a great one. The idea was to get the different forms in a SunDog type of game though something that might sone kind of a Ben10 watch or some pendant. But the setting is limited at first, I am leaning towards the pendant as some ‘device’ is an easy way out and this pendant comes with a pentagram and that pentagram has 5 points. The idea is that that the pentagram could be top or inverted, giving us a good and an evil side. Also the game has an inner side to the pentagram, as such there are 2 times 5 characters, I am still working on the good versus evil side of it, but I reckon that it will be order versus chaos, evil versus good is so 50s. 

But again it is a setting born from the amalgamation of good games, optionally making a great game. And I realise that these good games were working with the limitations that we knew were in place but as I realise that really great games were made by Peter Molyneux and Sid Meier and they were able to create great games with only 64KB, should we not be able to emulate that greatness when you get 1000% of what they have? (Just asking), so as we travel to these ‘distant’ places and and the essence of these characters and add them to the pendant and the setting has two entrances a start of the order story and an entrance to the chaos game. But these settings are fluidic at best, but it sets you on your quest. Perhaps it is that you relish order because chaos is just to chaotic (or better stated, you do not relish the creative and free lifestyle that chaos driven people rely on) and it could be trivial like that. Perhaps you see that order versus chaos is a better fitting considering films like Star Wars and a host of other games and movies. As such there is a larger setting to all this and the setting for order versus chaos can take up lots of settings and this os part of the journey and as you consider that you are uniting vies, the storyline in this will be largely RPG based and as well united these stories over the 10 worlds we educate the gamer on the essential need for order to progress, but in all these worlds there is a need for chaos as well, the views might be opposite, but it anything is learned from the setting of Babylon 5, the setting is that we tend to be a combination of both as such there is not one good side and one evil side, even though it is partially seen, but the settings of good versus evil  and whilst some ‘attribute’ this to fundamental philosophical and religious dichotomy between selfless compassion and destructive selfishness, the setting of this also defeats the purpose as selfishness tends to be limiting, as does compassion. Ask any nurse on the weakness of compassion and they will grudgingly agree that in some cases it is essential to act selfishness. Star Trek (the original series) gave us that setting in a fight between good Kirk and evil Kirk. It was inspired on was inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s character who is struggling with his evil alter ego. The series gave us a little better setting where we have traits that are good and evil and we need to combine those. As such I feel that order versus chaos might be a better fit to the game. 

This is a setting where we have to unite these views in 10 worlds and we set the stage to these sides on different sides of the planets we are visiting. Basically we get 2 versions of the planet of any planet and we get the whole range of planets that are involved. Optionally we get other planets that are involved where we get no character but they still ave RPG levels that require resolving and there is the rub that some characters are required before missions can get done, so there is that implication coming your way as some levels cannot be resolved before you get into the water (dropping a cat in water is not always a great idea), I had the scratches to prove it (they healed over the years) but that is the premise of what I would hope would make a great game. 

Have a great day this day

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Shadow time

In this age of games and remakes we tend to ignore a few games that fall into the crevices of success of storytelling. I personally liked the first game better than the second one. I am talking here of the Darkness. The storytelling of the first game is better and it gives a better telling of ones dark story. Together with the nitty and gritty, it is an absolute favourite of mine. I feel that the story was taken to the max and it gives a lot of potential, as such in this day and age it could easily be remade into a game that could score a 10 points stronger and it already had a great score. In stead of setting a ‘new’ stage, the New York stages were near perfect. The entire construction stages, the tunnel intro give a decent gritty organized crime setting. The setting of the back streets of New York are a great setting for stories. Although it is a lot of pew pew settings, the settings make sense. Nothing is too far over the top (beside there setting that his broken headwall was fixed.but that belongs to the story of the Darkness. There might have been limits to the Xbox360 setting, but the PS5 and Xbox X took care of those and as these boundaries are shot to shot, the game gets a decent setting of New York, complete with subways. Is it merely me? Do I miss these games? Yes, I do and I do not think I am alone here. Top Cow comics has its own fanbase and it is a significant one. There are also loads of people that do not adhere to DC or Marvel and that is fine. I myself started as a Batman fan, but Top Cow had its own appeal, as such their comics are decently build for gaming and I am of the mind that the Darkness is set to the top. There are more and there are great comics in either of these three houses to give rise to massive gaming, because like comics, games seek to the end of the individual and that is where the magi tends to happen. So when these ‘blockbuster remasters’ are done hashing up the same old for the next generation, they should consider the games that did not score 90%+ and see what’s they could make of that. As I said in the past the Atari 800/ST and Commodore 64/Amiga has over 10000 titles, if you just take the top 10% you get 1000 games with over a 90% rating. This makes for a decent business sense and when you consider that 64KB could be revamped in a 512KB game with klaxons that will blow the mind of nearly every gamer there is, there is ample setting for a whole range of gamer that will now get amazed for months with whole battalion of games. We can all wait for Horizon 3, the next god of war and so on, but that is simple idle time, nothing gets done in the process and the spin mongers and rumor mills on publishing houses now have the advantage with their slim articles leading with ‘What we know now’ I see a much better look with a gamer looking into the renewed form of Jackie Estacado and his escapades towards his uncle Paulie Franchetti and there is a decent chance that Mike Patton might want to voice the darkness again. All settings towards a good game and optionally now a better game. So what makes more sense, banking on a new game where the outcome is dubious, or putting your money in a fair game that could become legendary as they could optionally fix what was lesser than the whole? I leave you to thing on that, but remember Darkness was only one title there are obviously better titles in the Amiga/ST range that are ignored and the IP protection has been not been paid up and that opens up a whole new door for game makers. So what will it be? The media filling your brain with unsubstantiated rumors and speculation for 30 months on Horizon 3, or play to your hearts content those 3 months giving you real memories on what fun has been, should be and could become. 

Have a great day today

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Defining that new game

Almost two days ago I wrote ‘A really crazy idea’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2026/09/21/a-really-crazy-idea/) my mind did not sit still as it evolved and evolved a few ideas. You see, this game has real options as the hatred/disgust of the United States administration has not let up and with their ‘statements’ of a new deal with Greenland, which is basically the same one they had since 1951, the EU is added to this lovely set of people with a lasting disgust/hatred of the United States administration. So as such a mere 10% of 2 billion people would amount to 200 million optional gamers, making this idea slightly more successful than Skyrim has ever been. And a gamer like me finds that setting more than addictive. 

So whilst my mind was setting the data in my mind of events, sort of attack and impact set against the GDP of states and the GDP of the nation, all whilst we consider the impact that books and movies had in the suspense, terror and fictive fiction. Consider that these ideas were farfetched in the 70s, nowadays there is a reality of options and that is merely the start of it all. 

So when we see this and now realise that the United States have been playing loose with the security of its nation. Whilst the settings to rail and harbours have been shorted to the largest extend. As such finding a hundreds of books and hundreds of TV and cinematic approach to dangers to the way of life that the United States so ‘advertises’ we see a new setting of gaming and I like my gaming and we all love a high score, even if it is against a former ally. So, when we thing of this. How will the people in the Gulf States and Eastern Asia see this game? I reckon that billions will be playing it and that is where my gaming insight combined with BI and databases are connecting. 

So whilst we get the setting of a future game, I am wondering how much of a book I could ‘copy’ in narration before copyright protection shuts it down. So consider that this idea got a foothold from 1970 The Scarlatti Inheritance (by Robert Ludlum) where we saw “During World War II, the Allies launched a massive campaign of economic warfare to cripple Nazi Germany’s capacity to wage war. Because Germany relied heavily on imported raw materials, fuel, and foreign labor, the Allies targeted these vulnerabilities through three main strategies” and as we look now, the United States has pushed itself into a corner by alienating all the allies it once had and made a bigger enemy of China and the far east. As such I saw this setting and a game that they will love (the United States less so) and the setting of a think tank that wages economic war for the betterment of self is not an alien concept. As such there is a larger fuel feeding that could happen. Now consider the movie Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987), we all think that this is just a movie, but Gene Simmons (from the band Kiss) put a dangerous enemy on the map. And the Dutch Rutger Hauer only barely stopped him and now that the harbours are lacking in security that setting is not an inconceivable as seen. This is merely one movie and there are hundreds more and whilst the United States is lacking in several places. The impact of such matters could be largely disastrous (especially as the US Bank accounts are now minus 40 trillion) and that is where my gaming gene came into play, because the idea of another Evil Genius game but now set unto the impact of a nation might be just what my bank account needs (we all care for ones own bank account).

So, why so many options?
We all need a game that has replayability and is not set onto the same shape over and over again and whilst we take a turn onto what is possible, we could set the station onto sabotage of services, populations and a whole range of targets. The setting is that the more options (and optionally more after release) could entice a whole range of gamers into the field of this game. And as the game is set towards creativity, there are a whole range of other options to be considered (even some I haven’t figured out myself yet). 

And whilst we are considering how foolish I am, consider that President Trump created this stage himself and good business is where you find it and why be nice about that? When we consider the impact of animosity, consider the setting that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and as such there are people from Istanbul to Beijing who actively hate President Trump and his administration and as such optional donators to my bank account (my personal version of delusion) and we can go from there, because I put the idea online so that they can ‘feed my bank account’ with their gratitude. We all work with what we have and the only gaming entities that like my idea are in China, India or the Gulf states and this is my way to addressing them all.

But there are still a few kinks to work out and whilst people will look into IMDB for ‘attacks on America’ and the will have a few hundred options there and when we consider the books hundreds more will surface. A setting that is the start of it all. Getting this into a field with expected damage per state or as a country will require some time and they will see the impact that all this could make. The first hurdle being passed opens up the second stage. The stage of a fictive timeline of research, development and implementation. And in all of these cases no fake AI was required. What a lovely setting we see.

So, let the developer who might like a few hundred million games sold stand up, because even at $5 per games on mobile, this could make them a billionaire in a decently short amount of time. An amount at the expense of President Trump which he has no hold over and cannot collect on. What a lovely stage he created with his animosity. Oh, I just realised, there are plenty of Canadians who might try to get into this game as well and develop this and I just now remembered that Ubisoft Montreal shed a lot of members, they might want to get into this as well. Ah, what a funny setting. The people labelled’ to be the ‘51st state’ might want to make a game that ends the United States. The symmetry is overwhelmingly sweet. 

Have a great day today.

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Approach this

This is a weird setting. You see I got sucked into a video (on YouTube) regarding the September 11th event and every year I see the same things passing by and usually I ignore them, not because I don’t care, but because it tends to be mass creators. And I am not really into that. This being said, this time I let it happen because it was 25 years ago. I remember that day 25 years ago decently. I was sitting in a bar (at lunchtime) in Stockholm consuming my wrap with Bamse and Potatismos. When Fox (or CNN) came up with the news, ignoring what I was doing and I saw the impact of the first plane. I ran upstairs and got the girls (fellow workers) Eva and Anneli and we were seeing the impact the first plane made and I immediately called the New York office to ask what they saw (we had an office in the Empire State Building) but I actually didn’t know to which side of the city they were looking and even as we were talking the second plane hit. We saw it live on TV. This was the moment I knew that the United States were under attack. There is no way this happens twice within the span of an hour (I actually didn’t know how much time had passed) but the terrorist setting was clear to me. It would be hours before I learned the the Pentagon was hit too. But I also saw that this was a failed attempt. I reckon that bin Laden had intended to let the two towers burn like matches so through the night that terror would get the people of the United States by the heart. But then the failure struck. The towers collapsed and the terror turned into anger and hate in an instance and that was when bin Laden decided into finding a place wherever he could hide, because only the Japanese know what an angry United States feels like and they did find out (the hard way) and if you want to see that impact watch Zero Dark Thirty, an excellent movie by Kathryn Bigelow. But this is not about that. You see, I always feel the urge of a game I bought in 1988 by Andy Hollis (a founding member of Microprose) the game was Kennedy Approach, I had the CBM64 edition.

And I never stop being amazed how he got this game working in only 64KB of memory and that it still tingles my mind is basically unheard of, that is the impact of a great game. And I wonder why this wasn’t set into the new systems (you know PS5, Nintendo Switch) and that is the real worry and also the path to amazement. Because whenever I hear that I hear people say “that game made me interested in being an Air Traffic Controller”. It is not a leap because even as the graphics were low standard (by even the definitions of 1988), but the issue is that this game tingles the imagination and nowadays, whilst some players are trying to get to ‘rejuvenate’ their old games and some still wake up the jolt of the old achievements (like Oblivion remastered) and the only game that really woke up the feelings of the old game was David Braben who turned Elite into Elite Dangerous giving us 600% more of a game that was a stretch from the start. I reckon that And Hollis could do the same, even if it only improves the ‘smooth’ graphics. Optionally he could add Amsterdam International, Arlanda (Stockholm), Heathrow (London) and optionally Dubai International Airport, Sydney International, and a few more. It might aid the new player if it was a little more educational as well, an option that could be ‘unlocked’ by finishing the first airport which I believe was Dallas/Fort Worth, some say it was Atlanta, but I do not remember that level. 

But the setting is clear in a sea of wannabe innovators who want to innovate gaming (by giving us Galaga on a tablet) games like Kennedy Approach should be on the forefront of their mind and I reckon that taking an educational sidestep might also encourage people to take that path. There is something of a disheartening side to the conversation “You did great at math, you have inside, you have what it takes to be a traffic controller ” I don’t know about you, but that comes across as a little anti climactic but that might be merely me. And the international setting could entice a lot more people and the educational side of it might give more people that vibe of “This seems rather wow (not World of Warcraft)” and the idea that a game still has appeal after 38 years and not just with me, should get the investors running for their purse to get this started. Well actually I reckon that Andy could afford all this with his own pennies, but there is the setting that he might get a game developer like Saudi Arabia involved. And they would love to get their hands on an original developer and even as it is ‘set’ as it is considered a highly respected classic. It got 85% to 90% rating and that is what I think is needed to revamp an original game onto a new classic and as I see it, it would hit well with the Nintendo Switch crowd which is presently around 156.59 million units worldwide as of June 30, 2026 only 4 million below the PS2 which is currently the global number one and I reckon that this record is broken when we consider switch lite as well. But the Switch is still being sold, so I have no doubt that they will break the PS2 global record this year. As such it should bow clear that the Nintendo Switch is the preferred system and the original fitted on a 360KB floppy, as such it could easily be sold in the Nintendo store and on physical media. As such, why did no one else think of that?

As I see it (and as we see failing design settings on nearly all consoles) the idea of revamping these old games could be the ticket for any developer of video games. It is just my way of keeping the old ideas alive and if one developer (David Braben) can do it, so can several others. You just need to keep it out of the fingers of these wannabe developers who think that the latest graphics are the ticket to quick profit. That is unlikely to happen. But the setting of great graphic games can be the ticket if the rest was awesome too. A example is Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (2021), which I picked up again as I never got it finished 100% and Wolverine is coming up today, as such I thought it would be a great idea to get another game finished 100% and I am making splendid waves at present. I finished the game at least 4 times and I had a blame blast every time I played it. That makes for an awesome game. And Insomniac does know how to make great games, as such there is plenty to game in 2026. Wouldn’t it be great that some of the great CBM64 games would make a reentry? Especially as we are focussed on the less than half a dozen titles at present? Just food for thought, have a great day today.

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It’s new Jim

That is the setting giving a little homage to Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and he rightfully deserves it. Don’t get me wrong, Karl Urban did a fine job, but I grew up watching the Original cast on TV and lets be clear, Karl was amazing as the little winged Cupid and he was the best judge we have seen in cinema. He looked really like the comic books, but it is not about either characters. There is however some light connection and this story I hand to Avalanche Software. You see, I got to thinking early this morning and I reckoned that backstories make for decent games and whilst we consider series like CSI (which is awesome) the idea of an Auror taking care of business was not greatly shown in Hogwarts Legacy and as such that role needed an update for the second game. But what is a story/vocation when you aren’t vested in the idea? So that’s when I came up with the trials of an Auror. You see, we can all look towards the stages of magic as there is greatness and greatness, but working with limitations is what truly could make a game great. As such we needed to see a magic class that has little magic, not a squib, but perhaps an alchemist derivative, so not magic press, but magically inclined and with additional skills. And as such the Auror Alchemist came to mind. Not a squib, but limited magic with skills. So even as some (namely one) that had the Philosophers stone, but alchemists has a long lineage of magic creatures and this one was driven into a police force as a forensic specialist and as such he was ‘summoned’ to work in Irondale. So this is where the setting starts.

Consider the CSI games and they were fun, but it is settled around statical settings. So what happens when the game is drenched in Hogwarts Legacy (to give it a name) and you need to look at the settings of crimes with a magical aspect and often it needs to be surrounded by muggle settings. As such it becomes a two tiered game. Consider like the crime scenes in Arkham Knight, but not that high tech, the setting however could be used and it needs to be set in both ‘muggle’ and magic challenges, because the evidence needs to ‘satisfy’ common folk (as in non-magical hardworking people) and that is the challenge for Avalanche. I consider the feeling I had with the scene of Potter/Dumbledore finding Slughorn in Budleigh Babberton (yes, I know, it is not a real town). But that setting inspired the idea and it needs to be a serious piece of entertainment. As such the groundwork needs to be done and all kinds of Lore would need to get created and perhaps this would be up to team Avalanche/Rowling. I have no idea how that setting is or works. But I am merely trying to dot the “iiiiii’s” So when the mechanics are given the proper considerations (I used the Batman as a setting, which might work) but there is no high tech, there is a ‘predator’ setting of the room with scents, different looks and a splatter view of substances you see and so on. Like a magical renaissance view of Batman crossed with what a snake might see (they have infrared vision) and link that with a cat and you get a whole new world. Optional these views are evolution views that the Auror could grow/embed. 

And there needs to be decent cases, which is up to Avalanche software to figure out. Can’t expect me to do it all. But I believe that the Wizarding world fans are numerous, so numerous that they will grow that side into a talking about this setting and this optional game (optionally rejected by Avalanche software) to consider. And as this is a Wizarding world setting is is (as I personally see it) the idea is now also co-owned by JK Rowling. 

So, consider the implications of it all, the idea of getting a magic/muggle stage and how to combine that? I think that Arkham Knight had the right setting (and amazing job by Rocksteady Studios) and we cannot tweak it, but we can set this stage in a similar fashion, more renaissance, less high tech and there are also red herrings (not the fish), because when can we see a muggle stage? It might be a more advanced case later in the game. 

As such I feel I have spend my day creatively and it beats looking at the lies from politicians in a stage we massively don’t care about. Personally I think that this could be its own game (or at least should be) whilst parts of this could be transferred (more transformed) into Hogwarts Legacy 2 (if this fits whatever story line Avalanche is considering.

As they say another day, another dollar (in my case, my issues should then be solved by February 10,415 (almost 2 centuries after Paul Atreides is born).  You all have a good one today. My Monday is nearly over and I see now on YouTube that the TIFF is running (Toronto International Film Festival), and rumor has it that Sebastian Stan will be seen there with both arms intact (can someone confirm this please?)

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