Tag Archives: gaming

December 25, 2022 · 11:41

Ring around the currency

There is a stage, a stage I walked and it does not concur the news. The news given to us (or me at least) through ‘Saudi Crown Prince launches program to enhance digital infrastructure, creative work’ (at https://ara.tv/gkurj) from Al Arabiya. You see, the Saudi Consulate (through, I imagine orders from the royal house) stated that only partnerships can be considered. Yet creative work does not reckon on partnerships. The fact that Google and Amazon were clueless on what they saw, or they rejected this implies the folly, or the reduced impact of such a stance. We are also given “the creation of an intellectual property ecosystem that supports innovation and a creativity-based economy, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.” It cannot work as I see it. You see, partnerships implies that the partner will hold part of the IP, or the IP will become a whole lot more expensive, so when I offered a safe space for (an expected) 900 million Muslims this so called National Intellectual Property Strategy (NIPST), will reportedly play a part in achieving the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 would have needed to wake up (as I personally see it) and they did not, or the people waking it up, showing what is out there should have been alerted and they were not. I reckon that a safe space for 900 million Muslims should have woken the NIPST right up, it did not. On their side we can argue that it did not wake up Google or Amazon either, so it is not entirely on them. The idea that a new power player arrives should have woken the two up, or lose it to that wannabe Microsoft, but none of them woke up. So why is that?

I personally see it as a failure to identify a new innovative solution that ignores established foundations, because those foundations are rotten. As such a intellectual property strategy, a national one would not hope to have a real chance into becoming the power player. It will get a foothold, it will get IP, but only at the setting of the limited sight, which is a strategy and could be a strategy but not a true innovative one. The true innovators laugh at limitations, they laugh at established orders (especially rotten ones) and they create new foundations, stronger foundations. It is my personal believe that the foundation set to almost 1 billion Muslims should be seen as a sturdy start to something none of them have played to for a very long time. Decades to say the least, but that is my personal view. Those who hold the rotten foundations will not agree and will even less approve of my thinking. The longevity of their rotten foundations requires as many people as possible, too little and the rotten structure reveals itself and that is their fear, they invested lots of money in that foundation and when it gets exposed their value goes straight from penthouse to basement. A setting I saw coming close to three ears ago, before the first Covid lockdown, I was already on these pages and when we add the news from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-63906654) where we are given ‘Cost of living: Recruitment slows for game developers’. Here we see “There are 2,200 games firms in the UK, supporting 73,300 jobs The industry adds £5.26bn in GVA (gross value added) to the UK economy each year” now think for a second. How many AAA games were released in 2022, how many of them were British? 2200 gaming firms? How many rely on funny money (advertisement money) for them to get a few dollars, pounds or Euros? If only 10% of these UK firms relies on ‘real’ games it will be a lot. But that side is not one that the UK focuses on, are they? And it comes to blows when we get to “The value of the UK consumer games market reached a record £7.16bn in 2021” Yet my innovative solution, the one that the NIPST was never shown takes that one out of the equation, a billion (or more) Muslims that are not exposed to these advertisements, so how much is that costing these 2200 developers? Safe space is the next thing and when it comes it all ends for these £7.16bn funny money wielders and it will hit Google and optionally Amazon as well. That is the innovation that the NIPST was never shown, interesting evolution, is it not? And that is not merely on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is a global problem now, greed dictates innovation, an option it was never allowed or expected to do ever before. Why is that? Why is it now? It is because the fakers until they make it never ending up making anything, an economy founded and adhered to fakers with powerpoint presentations, seeking ‘yay’ sayers and not much more.

Well enjoy Christmas Day and realise that it never grew up through Toddler toys and it was never raised through baby food nourishment tables. That we did to ourselves, we created economies founded on funny money and certification enabling wannabe’s and in the digital age that foundation is about to collapse. If I am the first many more will question the values from fakers and wannabe’s soon enough. And after that? Well consider that the UK has 2200 game developers, there is Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Apple and mobile developers. So how many are where? How many are streamers and now consider what that 7 billion revenue is actually hoping for? Not a person enjoying games, because 20 advertisements an hour takes the fun out of gaming, but you figured that out, did you not? Now lets see where the NIPST will end with its current strategy. And consider how many of these developers are actually aiming for safe space?

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December 23, 2022 · 23:11

Unions

The thought took me by surprise. I had been playing Minecraft that day and the dream took me in a different direction, the merging of games. Now in the case of Minecraft this might merely be a DLC, or added to the game, but the stage opens up new directions in gaming.

To give you the rundown, I need to take you on a small trip. In my days of the Atari ST, the game ‘The Sentinel’ was released and I was happy, a remake was made in the late 90’s and it was awesome on PC, the music was fantastic and the game left an even deeper impression. The game is about a sentinel, it cleans the world, it rotates and nothing will survive in its gaze. It seems simple, but the 3D landscape is tricky and there are 1000 levels (if I remember correctly). So to win you need to get to the highest point and devour the Sentinel. The game is simple, but addictive and the PC edition even more so. But what happens when we take the Sentinel and make it massive, it cannot be devoured. Yet if you can get close to it, you could ‘attack’ it and get glowing bricks from it. The glowing bricks give the player powers. Blue will drop never ending water when active, red drops lava and so on. Yellow becomes a sun beacon. The Sentinel however changes the landscape it sees, and as such destroys your house, reduces it to rubble (with all the stuff still there. A rare event that changes the speed of the game and creates chaos. But that is merely one side, so what happens when we have BOTH games? We have thought of it and it does not always apply, but what happens when we have games from the same maker? For example AC Origin and AC Valhalla? They have implemented the cosmetic parts in later games, but what if we can push it both ways and more than just cosmetic? So Horizon Zero Dawn AND Horizon forbidden West? The games can be played separately, but what if we could unite these games? Add even more terrain? That is (optionally) the power of streaming games, streaming games will make this possible. 

It is a continuation of an idea I had in the past (and wrote about it). The original EA CBM64 game ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ now with a Bioshock look. Fully 3D, yet that is merely the start. For the Amazon Luna, the idea came for Luna keys, gold and silver. So when you play the game you could find a chess set, when found the option opens up to unlock THAT chess set in the game chess. It makes for a new setting of long term gaming. In addition, the idea came that could open up other games and other makeover of games. Like the game Clue, Harry Potter themes (if that was open to offer) and so on. In that same stage Assassins Creed 2 could offer a renaissance Italian chess set and so on. Not every game will offer this, but with every iteration that does we add value to gaming, we add interest in people who like to play chess to play other games. When you play the new version of ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ a game like monopoly would suddenly get an additional playable token (the Hindenburg) and it is that interaction that gamers will become hungry for and they will play more, enjoy more and experiment more. The power of streaming games is not unlocked for the simple reason that the game owners are merely looking to ‘copy’ their game on a new platform, to get more names, more players but no one is looking in creating better players, more fun and more joy. It is seemingly past them.

It is a stage that needs to be looked at now, because the new makers of systems are looking in that direction and there is no price for second place. As I see it The Tencent Streaming solution is merely a year away. The current owners squandered billions, lost the middle east and now Tencent is about to offer new options, new terrains and they will offer it to millions more. So how much of the playfield will Amazon surrender? Google left the gaming sphere and Microsoft remains useless (which they will spin in a direction like blaming Sony), but the truth is that these three players left well over 6 billion a year on the field and that field is now increasing and is slowly moving towards Tencent. Yes another fine mess they left the gamers.  The only player, who had their own niche is Apple and I have no idea what they are up to, they play their cards close to their chest. But they could be the new winner in the 11th hour. I cannot tell, too much speculation on that direction.

But the union of games is a natural concept in streaming games and look at how many offered that stage, the simple answer is none. And when Tencent does offer it, they basically become winner by default. It was so easy to actually listen to gamers (something Microsoft has never done). Sony and Nintendo were not streaming solutions and they have THEIR market. The others (Apple excepted) did this to themselves. Consider what you read here and consider what you see in gaming and then see how natural the ideas actually are.

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December 14, 2022 · 10:42

The stressed mind

We all have that at times, and I am no different. Stress gets to me like anyone else and it hinders my creativity, which is mostly why I hate it. Now this story started yesterday with ‘Scuttle the ship’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/13/scuttle-the-ship/) where I offered an opponent to Epic Games and now it is time to give you the goods. This IP is one with a difference. It is a freebee fr anyone who EXCLUSIVELY creates games for the Amazon Luna, no one else. Not even Sony. It is time to bring the pain to Epic Games and even as this might not be enough, it could be a decent start and the maker could end up with millions in royalty. 

The stage
The stage is one that required thought. You can have your randomness of events and that is fine. But to create a setting that entices players you need something more. As such I created stages of war, where the stage could be NPC driven, or it could be multiplayer driven. Than that drive needs to set the stage of weapons, but here I wanted to take a different turn. So I went back to the stage. And my mind came up with several stages. These stages are part of a lager whole, not unlike the multiplayer levels in ME3 (which was a huge inspiration) so there is space to manouver, but there is also limitation to how far you can move. This was the first instance and it gave me the following options. 

Battle of Rorke’s Drift, 1879 (Zulu, 1964)
Battle of the Somme, 1917
Ludendorff Bridge attack, 1945 (The Bridge at Remagen, 1969)
First Battle of Seoul, 1950
Battle of Ia Drang, 1965

These are merely starting points, but with 5 scenarios the game could start. In battle of Rorke’s drift we are in that same farm that we saw in the movie. There we need to survive for an amount of time and kill well over a certain amount of numbers. It is imperative that it is more accurate. It is the start and it starts in different ways.

You see, when the numbers are achieved portals open, and they take you to a new event, the problem here is that the event is random, moreover when you play with your friends they are likely to end up in different areas and there is a reason for that (explanation later). You see we see the event a one whole and that is true, but I am splitting it up the stage where we fight and the weapons we fight with. 

The weapons
In Rorke’s Drift that would have been the Martini-Henry. And the game will benefit with historically accurate weapons. That is the weapon everyone will get in the game and when they get the Lee–Metford and after that the Pattern 1913 Enfield. Yet that gun will not become the gun you carry in Rorke’s drift. It will unlock that weapon for the Battle of the Somme. They also have the .303in Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) but you get the idea. Through loot boxes (which you earn through gameplay) the Martini-Henry is upgraded to MK2, MK3 and MK4 making it more efficient every time, so the score will be higher and the kill count will go up. The stage is however that you get an upgrade card and it is YOU that decides which weapon to upgrade. Thee are cosmetic upgrades (uniforms) and there are support upgrades (health boosts and support boosts). Support upgrades are for one battle only, cosmetic and weapons upgrades are permanent. And as we go from these wars we can add more and more stages to the game. As you get into different stages and unlock more boxes you will learn that there is a weapon card which is NEVER for the current stage, but goes randomly to a stage and if you get there you see the unlocked weapon, there is the grand platinum (a 50% more expensive box) which is the only box that offers weapons for the CURRENT stage as well as another stage. The rest is the same, but at times having a better weapon in that stage is important and these boxes are earned by getting the scores in the game. Money has no value here (the dead never miss their coins). 

A new stage and one that could optionally lessen the Epic Game impact. If the developer gets the idea, they will be Abe to get more out of the game, especially when the stages double over time and the stage where the weapon is much more integral and more historically accurate is a stage we have almost never ever seen, making this a fun exercise. There are a few more ideas related to this, but I think some developers have to prove their worth first. Thee is only so much we can hand out for free, they have to show that they are vested in a solution first. 

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December 9, 2022 · 22:04

Slapping Fortnite

Yup, it happens and I have with some expectation of entertainment slapped them in the past myself. But this is different and I am not in agreement. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63911176) gives us ‘Children stopped sleeping and eating to play Fortnite – lawsuit’, as I personally see it, a debatable article and the BBC knows this, because there is no journo name here. You see, there are a few elements missing and anyone with half a bran knows this. When we see “One of the children cited in the lawsuit played over 7,700 hours of the game in less than two years. The legal action claims the game was deliberately developed to be “highly addictive”.” The first question I have is “How do you program a game to be additive?” It is a serious question. Every game designer would like to know. The second question is that the equation gives us that this child had to play over 10 hours EVERY day to get past that point for two years. So where were the parents? You want to hand this to Epic and not hand any responsibility to the parents? And the one element they all ignore (even the lame journalist) is the fact that peer pressure is a real thing and that is set in stone. More importantly, the parents have to shield these kids from peer pressure. I see nothing of that here either. 

Now I am all for slapping greed driven Epic Games, but lets do that for the right reasons, and lets give some responsibility to the parents in this equation. And the clear stage of “their children would forgo sleeping, eating and showering because they were hooked on the game.” Hands a portion of that blame and the issues surrounding them to the parents, where are the parents in this equation? Anyone with half a brain will miss them too.

Lets be clear, I am not claiming Epic is innocent, but I believe that there are a massive amount of questions and as such Epic is entitled to some support and I am happy to give it, even as I mostly dislike Epic Games with a passion. But I do believe that fair is fair and we need to start with that in mind. I reckon that the legal team and its fearless leader (CLO of Epic Games) will take a serious look at both the parents and peer pressure, two elements that are clearly in the top-line of the equation and the BBC made sure it never got mentioned. I will leave it to you to wonder why.

Enjoy the day wherever you are. 

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December 8, 2022 · 23:30

Shortcut gaming ends

Yes, this is actually a setting that was a while in the making. To be honest, I had no idea what I saw in my dreams. Things did not make sense to me at that point, but the afternoon changed things for me. You see, streaming consoles are the solution to shortcut gaming like we see on the tablets and mobiles. A shortcut to funny money and advertisement dollars. Consider the games you played last week, how many had an advertisement every 90 seconds? Every level? Streaming ends that, you see streaming is paid for, and as such like console gaming no advertisements. The larger issue with streaming solutions that they can hold much larger gaming needs, gaming needs that is not solved in a few hours. Games to bring achievement, real achievement and real joy. Like in the old days. Games like Railroad tycoon, Theme hospital, Theme park. Games that we can play a long time and show off as what we created. That was in the back of my mind, but I ignored it. It all starts with the image below

A simple grid, but one with a difference. You can create a maze, an intricate path but every point is significant. It can connect to a path below and there are in total three levels. And it is not one grid, there are four. Green, Red, Blue and Purple, each a different area. And it does not start easy, it does not start at all. Places like the Efteling (Netherlands), Phantasialand (Germany) and so many others, they all needed time and that is what you will need. You draw the plans, you make the place and perhaps a little basic at the beginning. Yet the game allows for so much more. Graphic files to be uploaded to your solution, the personalisation of a theme world like Anton Pieck did for the Efteling. This is not a simple game and it is not a short game. This brings fulfilment and it takes time, but that is the challenge. Not to make some short term gaming experience, but one that lasts a long time. My mind saw it, but the brain never communicated it to me (in a way I understood). The pursuit of shortcut gaming needs to end and lets be clear, this game is not for everyone. And the nice part with streaming games, you can try them all. And when you have 4 of these sot of games, you end up with 4 times the populations than these short cut game makers have. Perhaps Idle games is the only one with a real population, but that is because they have 20 variations on the same theme, and after an hour they all feel the same and unrewarding. A game like Dungeon Master (FTL games 1988) broke the mould and became the forefather for 3d gaming everywhere. Why? They did not offer a shortcut and in those days 40,000 games sold was a big thing, because it was. We need to change the way we see gaming, not how we see games (that I an art issue). You see the BI manager that push short term gaming are at the end of their feed, they end up pushing and nagging some mobile game, and with every streamer that enter a household the lifecycle of these games end. And whilst we create a new fantasy theme park with mazes, rooms and challenges, some will take the option to create in something like Adobe illustrator a new kind of door, and export it to their game, and soon that place will take on a new life. A personalised life where we create the new challenge and let the NPC’s wander around. A machine learning battleground where it is about the art, not the shortcut. Yes, we can add the usual gimmicks, but the ability to truly personalise a game is coming because streaming makes that possible. A cauldron in the making and Google tapped out of that equation, now it becomes the gaming field of Amazon (and that other wannabe) before Tencent drops in. 

Do we not owe it to ourselves to create the best gaming environment we could ever have? We can look at the games that were and remaster them, or see them as the groundbreaking tools they were and see if we can do that one more time and truly create something new?

I believe that the second one will create more followers. Don’t get me wrong, to see the Witcher 3, a 2007 game getting renewed in 2022 for PS5 is awesome. It could be seen as evidence just how groundbreaking that game was that it can till inspire gamers right next to Horizon Forbidden West (2022), 15 years and Witcher 3 can till hold grounds, that is amazing gaming. That shows you what a 90%+ game is capable of and that is what too many game makers have forgotten. 

I believe and I hope that the next generation games will push maximisation on streamers because that I where we are heading. Do not get me wrong, I will never leave my PS5, but there can be more and the Amazon Luna is in a much better position to prove that at present. 

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December 7, 2022 · 15:03

Poking the monstrous

Yup, my life (as it is) revolved around Pokemon Violet and Scarlet (Scarlet first). I am having a ball, the game is open, looks awesome, even on a Switch lite and there are all kinds of new Pokemon’s. Yet it is more than that. The graphics, the storyline and the open approach is just fun. I is havening a blast and it is a nice way to pass the time. I am definitely short a few Pokemon’s as the journey is more than just get the mile markers. And this game delivers in a few ways. It is one of these games that as made for the young and the mature are getting more than their fair share.

I saw the messages of bugs, but I never experienced them. I have seen a few glitches yet more than one is only debatable a glitch. I am willing to accept that the game has bugs, because it is bog, really big. As such bugs will appear, I just did not encounter one at present. 

Am I missing things? Well personally yes and I will follow on that shortly. The game is just so much fun, there are a few sides that have yet to be explored and I am not yet sure how to explore them. Perhaps it depends on getting to certain places, it is exciting to see these moments where you see a shield of poisonous purple in a wall and you have no idea how to open it yet. And with the three lines to follow (gym badges, star bases and herbs) you get to choose where to go next and that makes it a lot more fun. In addition there is a special Pokemon that sets the stage of where you can go next and that I equally fun, and therefor the old way of the Water Pokemon with Surf and Waterfall is a think of the past. Yay! New challenges. 

I like the new Pokedex, but I seem to be unable to filter by kind, as such finding how much of a kind I have (Steel, Ground, Dark) is a little harder. The map is cool and as it can zoom you can now see a lot more than ever before. So what am I missing? Well, I like my Evee collection and I have them all, but it would have been nice to get an additional flying, ground and poison Evee. Perhaps next time. There is also the call to have the Pokemon additions. For example if you have a Sableeye (a personal favourite) AND you have another like a Dark/Fire Pokemon, the Pokemon gets additional options. The first is 5% more happy, the second Dark/Water, or Dark/Grass would make Sableeye 10% stronger. Now this is one hell of a challenge, but the Switch is powerful enough to make it work. As such it isn’t merely about having 6 strong Pokemon’s, but the idea that the right team could make the overall team 10% stronger. It was just a thought to play with.

This game is a lot more open than the previous games and I believe that there is more to see (I only have 7 badges, 2 bases and 2 herbs) so I have plenty to explore and plenty to see. But the larger story is clear, this game is another champion game and a reason to get a Nintendo Switch. 

Still the game brings the punch, it brings the challenge and that funny feeling when you have 100+  of these little critters wondering where some of the others are. What is clear is that in the week I have played it, I did not once feel bored or unchallenged. Yes, some were a little expected, but the new parts overshadowed that rather quickly. So far I am still trying to find a Ditto (people who played the game know why) and there is a lot more to the game that I have not tested to my knowledge previous to Scarlet and Violet. When you considered that this game started in 1996 and merely grew over time through technology and gaming evolution, we see a game that has been round for 16 years, perhaps one of the most important games in the Nintendo arsenal. And the fact that it still calls the gamers to play is quite the achievement. Oh and there is every chance that there are parts of the game I haven’t even seen yet, quite the achievement indeed. 

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November 30, 2022 · 11:06

The Kay Pea equation

There is a setting I have skated on a few times. This is not the first time I raise it, but I feel strongly about certain options. A first was a puzzle I enjoyed. It came with a book. The story was a murder mystery, but there was no solution in the book. The added part was a jigsaw, the image would reveal the actual culprit. I had 6-8 of them and they were fun. But it was something someone (I do not remember who) made on the Commodore 64. They were Kinetic Puzzles. To explain that is simple. A jigsaw is the puzzle made from an image or photograph, I still enjoy jigsaws with some regularity. A Kinetic puzzle is not based on an image, but on a film clip, hence every puzzle piece is always showing you part of the clip and it makes for a somewhat ore challenging puzzle. The weird part is that this should have been on the eyelids of Netflix from the start. Movies are their bread and butter, what better that a puzzle that represents a clip from an upcoming movie? The solution tends to be the same, edges first, then you work your way in and when the image on EVERY piece is in motion, the challenge is soon felt and endured. Marketing through a game, it would be the cornerstone of Netflix and even as the puzzle part is not the hardest part, putting this all in a puzzle is still a challenge. But they did it on a Commodore 64 with a mere 38Kb of RAM. As such evolving towards 4K puzzles is not a leap of technology. And this came to my mind again as I was crossing the ‘i’ and dotting the ’t’ in the equation that is coming. Inversion is in part the name of any game and it helps when you are your own devils advocate. So when they consider this and add the simple Jigsaw part, Netflix will have a whole score of puzzles and the fans of movies will enjoy a game that reflects their passions. Streamers had this option from day one and some did not go in this direction for all kinds of reasons, but were some of the valid? They might think so and I am not debating that part, but what about the audience you are addressing? Did you think of them? Are they not your consumer core? 

Did you think that a Netflix customer might not like a puzzle regarding the Batman (who looks a lot like some famous Hufflepuff student), or any league of other heroes or villains? I wonder what these bosses were thinking when they pushed people out stating they needed super cool games, was a better question not ‘A game that could appeal to our core clients’ The KP or Jigsaw will not do it alone, but people will always return to something they enjoy, especially when they are fighting the hours, at that point they will revert so something simple like Chess, Checkers or Puzzles. And with an additional mode that is not seen anywhere, this might be an Initial solution all might fancy. Perhaps the idea of adding books to the jigsaw equation should have been on Amazon’s mind. There is not a soul who does not know what a Jigsaw is (aka puzzle) and they go back to 1760, a very long time before the house of Pong made its entry. Did anyone even consider to cater to puzzles to create awareness? Netflix has been in a prime position for the longest time and they never acted on it. They have the largest arsenal and they left it untouched, weird, is it not?

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November 20, 2022 · 19:43

Euphemism for the sake of reporting

It happens, there is no fault, at least often enough there isn’t one. In this case I have issues and it is withe the BBC who gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-63649695) ‘Gambling: Boy, 16, lost thousands after seeing advert’. In this, did he lose it, or did he steal it? Lets look at the reported facts. In the first we are given “Nick Phillips, from Swansea, said the boy opened an account in his father’s name an hour after a match.” As such the boy committed identity theft. Then we get “after seeing the gambling ad”, here we have a problem. Yes it is an advertisement and we can argue that the advertiser is not at fault, yet the ‘boy’ needed an hour to arrange for the opening of an account. So where were the checks and balances? Why is there no mention of the lack of checks and balances by the banks? Then we get (of course) the reference to loot boxes. I do not agree with these assessments, but I get that some see it different than me and that I fine. Then the BBC gives us the part that is indeed important. With: “Every video game console has a parental or family settings area. One of the things I really like is the ability to say ‘can this account make transactions? can it spend money? Also, how much can it spend?’” That is true, as such safeties can be imposed and I am fine with that, but the stellar amount of non-accountability is not OK. The boy was a thief and it had nothing to do with the advertisement. He took an hour to get an identity and get spending, according to the article thousands. I do not see, or agree with ‘this poor lad’, no it is ‘the degenerate criminal’. OK, the word ‘degenerate’ is optional, but it is a setting that we need to heed. In an hour a family member took the identity of another family member and how was that possible? How was it possible that credit cards, identity papers were so readily available? They mentioned he had a gambling problem, so why were certain blocks not in place? And we still haven’t seen anything on HOW it was done in an hour and what facilities gave rise to this stage? I am assuming that there were bank issues, but that is merely an assumption. I reckon that the credit card, if suddenly a certain amount goes into a non usual place alarms go off, did they? 

So why is there such a lack of information, and we see ‘poor boy’, references to loot boxes and whilst we agree that kids need to be protected, my personal view is that if they were so easily swayed to crime, the problem resides equally somewhere else and in this the parent get the blame. To be honest, I am not entirely sure that this is fair, but when a 16 year old can overcome legal loopholes and enter the field as an identity thief, we can agree that the parents failed to some degree at this point. I am not willing to fully blame them as peer pressure could be massive at that age (I was a teenager once, yes it is true, I was). 

But there is a lot more going on and the BBC (as I personally see it) intentionally decided not to inform you on that. And I wonder why.

I have no issues with euphemism. There is nothing to gain by telling someone that their child was decapitated. It makes sense to phrase it more like ‘He got ahead of himself and was unfortunately a casualty of events’, but when factual parts are misplaced and not reported on, is it still to serve the greater good, or to cater to an agenda? I will let you decide.

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November 19, 2022 · 15:25

Correlating the mode

A weird term to say the least, but it will soon make sense. I was watching the Patriot today (the Mel Gibson version) which I had not seen in over a decade and something came over me. I suddenly wanted to play Assassins Creed 3 again.

One called or the other. I did not think it was a bad game, it had interesting elements and for one, the intro was brilliant. Yet the game had a missing part. It was a lot less AC then the previous ones and that is not bad, the game was not bad. It was merely less great. Yet one called for the other and I needed to recognise that. As such I wondered if BOTH directions work. You see the PS5 and Streamers (soon enough) have an optional additional side. To get there you need to answer a question. Have you ever watched a YouTube with cutscenes? What if there was another mode with more? To keep in the AC line, what if there wasn’t some DNA you were filling, but film reels? Consider any game, you have a main line and side lines (in RPG’s at least). So what happens when we find all the reels, more important when we find them all a new mode opens up that we can see at the end of the game. The movie! Not merely the cutscenes but a complete movie in 4K based on cutscenes with additional footage, footage that tells part of the story, but we never played that part of the story, it merely completes the entire storyline. Now consider that we play a game like Diablo 3, the cutscenes are fabulous, but what if the acts become additions to the movie and we have a wizard edition, a necromancer edition, a barbarian edition and so on. A game, nearly any game giving us a 4K movie to watch. Streamers are better equipped for it, but I am willing to bet that any Horizons Forbidden West gamer will go nuts when they complete the game and are then treated to the HFW movie. What surprises me is that this feature was never part of any game, why not? We can argue that previous editions weren’t ready for this, but these systems (Nintendo Switch gets an exemption) are and this option could be available in the next decent RPG game. 

I wonder who will bring us the most exciting game movie next. 

 

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November 11, 2022 · 19:25

First of two issues

I had a rage attack today, it was right after some stupid set of saggy t*** decided to attack Elon Musk in a Presidential briefing. It feels like she is from Forbes. They have been pushing the Musk envelope. It is my personal belief that they are close friends with Jack Dorsey, a person they seemingly never asked any serious questions from and ‘the national security danger that is Saudi Arabia?’ Oh, I got her number and then some. But there is time for that and I have seen that death is not the worst a person can experience. It will be my delight to introduce that terror to her. But there is time for that and certain plays are not completed. But then something happened. 

A tweet brought Me back to my senses. This lady is totally nuts about Elden Ring. I get that drive, that devotion, optionally that obsession. I do not agree with her, but that I her right. I did not play Elden ring. I could never finish BloodBorne. I still have it as it is one of the most beautiful games I have, next to Dark Souls 3, a game I equally never finished. Both utterly sublime, but in my lifetime I doubt I will ever finish that. Yet it was about her feeling. I thought I had the same with Horizons: Forbidden West. But then God of War: Ragnarok came. I am taking me time as every corner, every sight is a feast for the eyes. I lost a few lives, but that is OK. The game delivers again and again and the story is magnificent, as is the music. I do not believe that Guerrilla software has anything to fear. There is space to love control of both Kratos and Aloy. Two amazing pieces of faming IP, this was a good gaming year and I am not forgetting Gotham Knights. Three Amazing journeys. Yet at present I am knee deep in Asgardian folklore and epic myths and Santa Monica Studios deliver in ways you cannot believe (unless you are playing the game) it is good that in the twilight of my life I can still be amazed by games. I started gaming in 1984 and I never stopped. I might not have the drive I once had (like playing 167 levels of Loderunner on the CBM64 in one sitting). I did take a sickie for that event. It was a time when you could pause a game, but you could not save a game. Still, 38 years later and that gam is still part of me. Games evolved from CBM64 we got the CBM Amiga, then PC, then the PlayStation range one through five and gaming never disappointed. I might not like everything, but that is not required. There is space for the yearners of Elden Ring, the obsession with Quake, Halo and Bethesda games. It is an inclusive group, the more the merrier. 

There is no hindsight, not a new piece of IP (other than the ones I already have). Many forget that gaming is not a business (to some it is), it is the ones that see games as art, those are the games that get the 90%+ reviews and Sony has a basket full of those, no matter how many ‘opponents’ troll rating into the basement. The gamers know what is what and they are driven to success. To achieve the end of the story. Anyone finishing Horizons Zero Dark can tell you about that. There is a need to finish the story and God of War: Ragnarok is no different. Do not worry, no spoilers here. 

Passing that line yourself is so fulfilling it gives value to a game and you will cherish EVERY dollar you spend on it. Today was a great day for gaming. I wonder if that is why I became angry at Forbes with its BS sense towards an owner and a partner who owns a mere 4% of Twitter. Which is interesting as the China hatred in the US does not give rise to the partnership that Microsoft and Tencent have, not even from Forbes, where is their national security interest there?

I am contemplating words I once got from Frank Herbert “He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing”, he published it in 1965, 57 years ago. Words to live by and I am feeling rebellious and frisky, a dangerous combination in someone with my mindset, but Forbes will soon learn that lesson. I’ll give fair warning a day after I have completed the exercise. Only fair, not?

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