Tag Archives: gaming

June 19, 2026 · 06:37

There was more

You see, yesterday I came up with a new lore system and it kept my from the real setting of the game, because there was a lot more. The first part was that there was a reason why I felt affinity to Paradroid and Hacker. The idea was that there were two mainlines (I had not chosen yet) the first was that this was a recon setting for aliens, the second was that survivors of this world were working from a separate setting (I fancied that one a little more) and the only way is to interact by invading technology and drones with a nano virus but it needs to be a lot more structured than just invade a server or a combination of systems, But the idea is that these nano bots can only invade systems in combined efforts (like a server and a drone in unison) from there we get to see a larger setting and from one system we can combine systems to invade a CCTV setting, but CCTV settings are often shielded, so you need a path towards that setting. So I has not worked it all out, but there was an evolving setting connected to all this. So whilst we get that any CCTV system has connected systems, we need to combine a larger connected systems to connect to larger and bigger connections, so there needs to be somehow an evolving setting like Hacker, where we connect to a drone and CCTV systems, but how to do that and keep an interesting game? That is the question I was bending over, but not in the way Paradroid did it (it had its own charm) and I didn’t want to plagiarize that. From that setting I merely had the idea that several autonomous systems could be infected, but that is the extend the game had ‘traction’ and I didn’t want it to be too much of a stalking approach, other than the need to find out what had happened to the people of that place (like a viral attack, or simply a air-conditioning defect) So whilst I was focussing on elements of the game, I was designing the game in real time, because that is how my mind works and the setting is that different devices had its own versions of Lore, so they are all stories, often not connected and it gives the overwhelming feeling of data. That is bound to happen in all these settings, so how to focus that? I gave the lore setting a go and from there the lore was bound to all kinds of things and I had to create a decent amount to overwhelm the senses (and the game) with lore that might seem bound to have a connection. So there I was in what some would seem a steady stream of data, but what is relevant? You cannot have a ‘data game’ with no responses and all relevant data, that is not how it tends to work, but I was trying to figure out how to get to the good stuff and an overload of data tends to be the setting in many cases. So whilst we ‘infect’ drones and systems, we need connect elements and find a way to connect to a system, the best option is to infect a drone and see where the connection tends to go, so we get two locations already and the evolving nano system has limits in the beginning, so it needs several of both for the nano system to evolve into a stronger system, it needs to develop, just like a real nano system does. But autonomous nano tech is not ‘up for grabs’ and as such I had to evolve the ideas in my brain on how to evolve these settings. 

So whilst I was considering all that, the lore system evolved in my brain and it had many connected benefits and it could benefit the future of larger gaming, because lore tends to be the larger setting for many RPG games and a game about hacking and data has an abundant of that, so while there is a need for the lore, the idea of lore writing itself making the game replay-able has benefits. So does the idea of creating a CCTV mesh of data for an entire city. But that is another mess to consider. What mattered is that I had to figure out how a nanotechnology system could evolve. There is the ‘breeding’ setting where systems provide the resources to breed (like connecting a resource to a router or a dead drone), from there we get more nanotechnology at our disposal but I was still working this out, so when we get more resources we get more nano tech to work with, yet here is also the limitation, although a dead drone could provide thousands of drones, they are stuck un a place, as such we need to connect one to the other and that is part of the puzzle I am working on and how to make this a decent part of any game is the puzzle 

I need to work on, an idea is nice, but how to work this out is the puzzle a designer needs to focus on, because not every idea makes a decent game and that path is riddles with the carcasses of optional great ideas and it still beats the news junk on how newspapers are trying to voice the setting that a ‘great idea for peace’ is not the setting that Trump got played by Iran and how Israel is set towards inaction against people that are trying to destroy Israel and they will not stop, so all that settings are a bit dreary and not worthy of my time, or at least that was how I felt about that yesterday, all whilst we are getting less than an hour ago ‘Trump’s Deal Sidesteps Key Reasons He Went to War With Iran’ (source: Wall Street journal), as such we will see more ‘news’ on the setting that the USA is too broke to be considered a player on the world stage. You see some claim “According to U.S. Treasury financial statements, total federal liabilities have grown to nearly $48 trillion against roughly $6 trillion in assets, leading some economists and commentators to label the government as technically insolvent.” (Source: Yahoo News) Or the fact that “The national debt exceeds $34 trillion, equating to a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 123%” (source: Forbes) and I have been saying this since ‘About America, chapter 11’ Which I published on August 26th 2014, almost twelve years ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/08/26/about-america-chapter-11/) as such you have all these economic professors who ‘object’ to that setting whilst the setting of the last year are showing me to be the correct party, even though I have no economic degree, I do know data., I have been dabbling in data for decades. As such the game came to my mind and as such the avoidance of the ridiculous war setting was invading my mind for weeks, because at present ‘Trump lashes out at “fools” who oppose Iran deal amid bipartisan criticism’ (source: CBS News) and ‘Senate Republicans raise alarm over Trump’s deal with Iran’ (source: the Hill) as I see it, soon there is no place for the media but to go and delve into the insolvency of the United States, perhaps this president could use the Epstein files to divert the eyes of the media? (evil grin forming on my face), not to mention the musical acting of ‘Republicans slam Trump for caving to Iran in ‘disaster’ of a deal’ (source: Rolling Stone Magazine) an if you consider that the bulk of the media never really liked President Trump, consider what they will publish now. And this is all before Iran sees its way to cry to the courts of international law in The Hague, so there is that still coming and all this could have been foreseen if someone served the power players coffee in the Pentagon, I think it is spelled ‘Covfefe’ (source: President Trump, first presidency) a setting that was clear from the beginning of March, but now that setting will hit the Republicans squarely in the face, as such it might become the most humorous midterms in November 2026 and I reckon that there aren’t too many Republican fans at present. So whilst those up for midterm elections are bound for the unemployment lines, we will see an abundance of mis-categorisations and as such this might be the turning point where the west is seeking a new player that could align with the Commonwealth and the EU and I personally am putting my money on a larger cooperative with Commonwealth, EU and the Arab states, the other option is that the Commonwealth and the EU will align with China. I think the second one is not readily accepted in the EU and parts of the Commonwealth. Still, the cooperative with the Commonwealth, EU and the Arab states could bring prosperity and optional good times for China and whilst the EU is pulling back from Microsoft and the United States hosting of over 4000 data centers. So when do you think well over 10% will be pushed into bad mortgage setting and written off to a rather large degree. All settings that will end an abundance of revenue and set the larger data settings off limits. I have no data to support this, but the crumbles of data are all over the place, the question becomes how connected are these slithers of data? I will let you decide, I have to put some effort in creating a new game, which is much more enjoyable than any political setting. 

So you all have a great day and someone keep an eye on Iran and their connections to Hezbollah and Hamas and when they will ‘miscommunicate’ their intent and it all starts all over again. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 18, 2026 · 11:04

Out of the pink

Yup, that’s me, not out of the blue, so I had to think of another colour. Out of the Teal was too close to blue, so it defeated the purpose, then there was red, but it was too aggressive. So, out of the pink it became. My thoughts tend to be all over the place and I was thinking of the old Activision game Hacker. So, consider that it was based to what we thought it was thinkable in the 80’s (with only 38KB memory). This is not a setting we need to consider today, the average mobile has 10 times the memory we used to land on the moon, as such we have some degrees of freedom. The issue becomes when we consider a multitude of games like Hacker and Paradroid. Not to copy, but the settings there is one that can lead to all kinds of new IP and these games are lost and mostly forgotten. So consider that we have an AI setting (an Actual True AI) so we get that to play with, but the sinister setting is not that it is all it is cracked up to be, because the people were gone decades ago and now we get to resolve what there is. So in comes an unknown entity (largely unknown) and it can resolve the settings it sees with tech more advanced that we have seen over the coming century. So the game starts as an observation game, but the video links are giving us clues. From there, we get to the industrial stage. These systems can replicate, but they need fuel. So its first function is search for fuels it can use to replicate. At this the link to Paradroid comes into play. We get to ‘infest’ the visible droids we see and they can set us towards new areas. And from there we get to new places and see new things. I partially write bout this before (somewhere last year) and set it to an Earth-Mars setting, but with disclosure day upon us, we can take a much further aim to what we are looking for. More importantly, this could be a near infinite game. I don’t believe in infinite, but near infinite is a much nicer way to tell the audience, this is a game that could fuel you for a long time. So if the goal is conquest, we can always see the edge of what we can do and see, but if the goal is data, that setting becomes near limitless. Consider the ‘aliens’ in AI, if this is what we envision, what would be the edge of what they would see? 

There was something serene about that view by Steven Spielberg. I am still curious how Stanley Kubrick would have set that pace (because it was a little too sweet for his view on matters) but that is my interpretation of what I know of Stanley Kubrick and that gave me the setting on the creation of lore in the stores that this game could stage. You see, there is no real AI, but there is the setting of DML/LLM and lore can be spun around those two stages. You see, we can go about it again and again, but when you get a repetitive story, the fun dwindles down to a small trickle. So to counter that, we need to create a intelligence that uses the internet (in part) to set the stages for millions off gamers and hen we get a stage where we have the profile of dozens of writers (from Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Edgar Allen Poe, George Eliot, Homer (not Simpson), Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato, Herodotus, Miguel de Cervantes, Harry Mulisch and it is not based on one writer, as we get elements of romance and intrigue intertwined the result is a mix of Jane Austen/Charlotte Brontë whilst the intrigue part is set to George Eliot/Herodotus and these aren’t mere settings, the intelligence is vast and diverse, as it needs to be, so the connections are towards a gaming mainframe that passes along the lore towards the stage of play. This would be a monumental undertaking and it is not a given that it is simple. But this level of diversity has never ever been achieved and that is where the larger benefit is. A stage where we see a multitiered Producer-Consumer Model that has s fas as I considered it never been achieved in gaming before, so this will take a level of understanding that is unique and could become the game changer and it makes sense as it is not merely a ‘single setting’ this could be the evolving door towards RPG lore creation. The writers are known, but the materials it creates are a diverse amount of layers that were never part of these writers. It becomes a whole new field of IP and even as AI doesn’t exist, DML and LLM do and they do all the heavy lifting. It could also diversify the engines that are currently in existence. So we see Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, but what happens when we replace the stage from Steven Spielberg and replace his settings with Graham Greene? What do you think that does to the lore of the story, when AI gets a distinct ‘The Third Man’ touch to the story? This is what we aim to go for, where we get to the story, what happens when the elements become interchangeable? Don’t think that I cam sup with this and it is simple. This might be the next stage in gaming and it becomes a much larger setting towards the exploitation of gaming lore. And exploitation is about right, because we might be harvesting writers style, but this setting ha never been done and that is the solemn goal of any designer, to be the one making a difference and as far as I can tell, this has never been tried or even succeeded before in gaming. But that is what makes the next idea exciting. Not merely because it is new, but because this approach towards dynamic lore has never been achieved and perhaps there was a reason for that in the past, but we have a lot more space than the CBM-64 about 64,000,000 times more and that is merely for the storyline to be created and when that works we can focus one the long term approach of making an actual never-ending story, the insert of the sacrificial Artax becomes optional. But that is my sick sense of humor and I am still privy of making Sir Hiss (Terry-Thomas) becoming the rope that saves Artax, but that is my sneaky sense of humor. 

So you all have a great day and consider the hints I have in this story, so where does this make waves? It’s up to you to see where this is possible.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 15, 2026 · 23:51

Merchandise

That is the stage and the setting. You see I have been replaying the God of War games, because in the near future God of War Laufey will be released and I needed to get back into the lore of the game, which is nothing short of miraculous. So, as I was playing the game. I was considering merchandise. And I have seen several things in the God of War range, but never these ones and considering that God of War has over 76 million copies sold and therefor the fans run into the tens of millions. People have made wagers on a lot less. So lets take two examples.

The first one are these chests that Kratos smashes his fist through and Atreus uses his bow to smash (bad use of a bow) they have goodies and that is it, but what if there are three options. The first is a small one and fits on a desk with storage for office goods (paperclips/memo pads) you know the usual suspects on a desk. Optionally open holding pens and pencils. Then there is the medium version which could hold your treasured PS games, optionally 4k/Blu-ray too. Open the box and your favorite games are there for the selecting, for perhaps you have a urge to keep your Star Wars movies in a separate space, all options that make a room look cool, then there is the large version and that one is debatable. A small chest, an actual chest. We don’t think of them, like this anymore, but in the 60s/70s we had hope chests. A hope chest is a wooden chest or trunk that would store special items for a bride to use when she got married. Although, over time, the tradition has changed. My father altered a fruit chest (painted it too) to keep all my toys in (he called them my personal rubbish bin) So we get a supercool looking toy chest, or for whatever reason you want to use it for, the setting is that a chest like that might find a rather large interest and as the game carries love and favour of the gaming community, so will the merchandise. 

The second one are the coffins that are ‘freed’ (read: looted) by Kratos and company. These would be just in the small version and would hold pens, so your office or private office gets the cool stamp all due to the efforts of Studio Santa Monica, I reckon that they will act on this as it is their IP, so nothing for me (alas). But a good idea should not be stopped merely because it is not mine to wield. The idea is still sound, so I wonder why I have never seen these items in places like EB Games, JB Hifi or whatever localised stores you have. I reckon that there is coin in this idea and with millions of fans and the upcoming Laufey plus the setting that we are getting closer to Christmas and Thanksgiving, Santa Monica Studios wanna run like Santa to get in on this action. The simple reason that it is an almost guaranteed success and they already did the ground works for their games. I have no idea how this will play in Laufey, so there might be more, but that is up to Santa Monica Studios to cash in on. 

Merely putting the idea out there. Have a great day, almost Tuesday and my tooth is hammering in pain, so it is close to my highly needed overdose of Paracetamol, Codeine and Oxycodone so I can get some sleep. Life is not always feeling like roses, sometimes the thorns sting.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 9, 2026 · 16:02

The simplest frame

There was a setting that evolved in my mind towards gaming. You see, last night I mentioned to Apple that all AI is fake AI (it really is) and people are somehow bewildered on that premise. You see, they have for the most all excepted the spin that sales people started, they are all talking the same delusional settings. So my mind went one step further. What if this is pushed into the AI when it become real AI? That is the stage my mind saw. So like all the other games like Horizons, we get a new RPG, but one with a difference. 

The AI was scouting the area assigned to it and it comes across a medical centre. It was interesting that this place was largely untouched by war. And it scouted into this building. Something like the Medford Memorial Hospital (Fallout 4), no super mutants though, but the setting should be clear to you. A medical centre and the AI is rummaging through the place finding record. It will enable one story at a time and it is pushed towards the surroundings, and though the view that the medical chip gives, it is set to the story of this patient. The AI is tasked with retrieving the persons settings and it does so as best it can (the chip was damaged) and we see what this patient saw. The story unfolds and as we can see how life was in the late 22nd century, we are drawing some conclusions. But as the stories unfold, we see that the AI is trying to distinguish fact from reality and that is when we (the gamer) starts to see that things don’t add up. So as we go through the stories, we are given a few stories and we are shown what might have been, but as you go through the third story, the evidence supports that this was never real. Consider that a person really believes that he is a muggle and Hogwarts is real. That is seemingly the setting. But an AI cannot differentiate  between real and fiction, there are missing parts, so the AI tries to join the experiences and that gets us to the stage we now find ourselves in. Things are not adding up and the AI is trying to set aside what is fact and what is fiction and now we see the views altering. So when we find in that place like Medford Memorial Hospital (Fallout 4) and we find the administrators office we learn that this was a mental clinic and the people were quite mad and delusional. So how does an AI deal with that? It can inly do so if it has the data to support this, but that is part of the journey and the game goes deeper into the stages of AI and what it does when data is missing to draw certain conclusions. Especially when the human civilisation is absent and the AI’s need to learn to evolve without people. That is part of the game and that is the challenge. What to do when you cannot distinguish fact from fiction. 

As far as I know, only Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem on the Gamecube made a jab at that setting and not via an AI, so the idea is fresh and has never been opted before. So what happens when this is madness that AI faces, not merely what it think it is, but because the human civilization set that upon them. A stage ignored and often overlooked, but the damage to such a system is real because we never offered the unbiased view, they all talk in their street and leave it at that, like it is meant to be monitored at all times. Yet when the human civilisation ends (as it is bound to do) what then? What happens when these AI’s are no longer bound by the programming of the programmer but are left alone and left to evolve whilst verification and validation are set to the later stages (which never came). I think it would make a decent new franchise, so I say Sony go ahead and make something from this. 

So you get an AI, you get parts machine, parts programming and you get to evolve it all in an RPG stage, in a stage where parts are found, where programs are found and evolved in ways we cannot yet say, as such the view of the AI will alter according to what the AI has installed (hardware and software) and I reckon that this on an. RPG gave to the best of my knowledge has never been done before. In text it was done in Suspended (Infocom), where Iris, Whiz, Waldo, Sensa  and Auda all see the same thing in different ways, so what happens when we do this to an RPG and the programing of that AI alters what it sees? Add to this the stages of mental patients and we get a totally new world with dragons on the left (an incinerator). I reckon it would be a tall order for anyone, but my money is on Sony (optionally Nintendo too) to make this into a real world. And optionally the administrator has blue glasses and pink glasses that can override all settings and give the AI an unadulterated view on what could be. 

I wonder if it could be done, the technology allows for it, but this might stretch the PS5 to the max and if Fallout 3 was 8.462 square kilometers a d Fallout 4 was 9.7 square kilometers. So it will be a decent setting to keep this the same (around 10 KM2) but the filters would make it a few times larger (the same space several times) and then there is the option for the AI where two patients had been to switch between the patient chip with optional glasses of the administrator. Take into account that the AI is drawn to evolve wherever possible (a small suspended wink towards a Waldo for Waldo) and we get a new RPG world that is extinct of people I wonder if this could be pulled off, my mind says yes, but my imagination goes far beyond what a PS5 or its programmers can develop. Still the exercise in making new gaming IP is nearly its own reward. And as far as I know no one even considered this path in all the games and franchises we see, nor do they have to.

So this was me bobbing creative yet again and I wish you all a great day. Time for me to devour a cookie and watch some YouTube, let’s see what is happening in Toronto.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 6, 2026 · 13:59

Topping perfection

That is a big call to make and even to deliver on. Let me talk you how I got there. I have started to play God of War again, the fourth one. The reason was the demo we saw in State of Play. Now, for me there was an additional reason, because after I stopped playing that game and before now I was ‘forced’ to get a new TV and now that I have that new TV, I gained the benefit of 4K. Initially I had mixed feelings, because 1080 was perfectly good, but my trusty boob tube broke. It does that after 9 years of daily service and I had no ill will to the makers. It trustily served me for all those days. So here I was enjoying my 4K option and after watching Laufey, I decided to play the 4th God of War again. And what an amazing joy it still is. I initially rated that game in the 90s, but with the added graphics it is definitely a 100%+ game. The game was that overwhelming. Now, remember that it was released in 2018, now 8 years later, it still rocks the other AAA games release les than a year ago. That is nothing against the new games, the game was perfect. So, can we improve upon perfection? I think we can. Now lets be clear, I am not telling Santa Monica Studio how to do their job, they delivered a 100%+ game. But this could apply to all game makers. Now, consider that I destroyed now a few Odin’s Ravens I never noticed before, mainly because I was aware a lot sooner of what they were. So, what if the New Game+ unlocks not only gameplay and a lot of the same enemies, but what if lore is unlocked in this setting. There is only so much you can get in the first game stopping an excellent action game into an adventure game (the Zork kind), So what happens when we unlock additional lore (like the ravens) we unlock in all kinds of ways, making a complete story, a much larger story. And God of War allows for that, as do a lot of other games. But it seems more relevant to this game as it is already showing to be perfection incarnate. I started to play it so that I could enjoy the 4K adventure I never saw. But why happens when that comes the point of the game, to enjoy it again and then enjoy it more. It doesn’t need achievements, but the option to learn more about Odin and that rascal Loki is perhaps a setting worth exploring. Another game would be the two Horizons games. What is stopping the makers to add deployability be adding a few storylines. They might not make sense in the initial play through, but could make the replay ability stronger. So by adding a storyline to people like Petra Forgewoman, Ilsadi and Greatrun Keeper (mere examples), to add them in the initial game merely gives too much cluttering, but in the replay there is a lot you to with some automation and adding the lore and optional missions gives the New Game+ an additional side that could give the game the added umpf it could use. Because replaying a game of that magnitude tends to make people run from place to place, so to add side missions that were not there to being with might make for an interesting pace of gaming. In the case of God of War, optionally unlock additional ‘original’ lore, you know from the ones who wrote them.

Yes, I also feel weird commenting on near perfect games, especially what Santa Monica Games and Guerrilla Games are producing. But as I see it, no present games in rotation offer this additional setting. So it might be an idea to add this to the new games, and perhaps there is something that Santa Monica games might want to add to God of War 4 and 5, optionally after Laufey is released to give the games and their collectors an additional reason to hold on to them and optionally replay the games they loved for a long time. So accept the idea, or reject it. It is merely my thoughts on how to give these games optional additional greatness. 

Have a great day, for me it is now time to get some snacks in.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 5, 2026 · 01:30

Out of nowhere

Yup, that was the setting as I see it. I was getting frustrated with the man on Pennsylvania Avenue 65000 who just doesn’t get it and now we get tariffs in Australia too. Gone are the days when we discussed a real solution. But for now we can rely on the Commonwealth to come together and make the United States the pariah. According to ABC News we are facing  “Australia is among 45 countries facing the higher 12.5 per cent rate, alongside China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland. Another group, including Canada, Britain, the European Union and Mexico, would face a lower 10 per cent duty.” And I suddenly realised that this was not about forced labour laws and according to legal insiders, Australia has world-leading laws to combat forced labour. So what is this about? These are merely bully tactics to create a gap within the Commonwealth, because as I see it, the Commonwealth has likeminded laws, they are not identical, but likeminded. So this is another bully tactic from the intellectually challenged person in the White House. I reckon that there will be some kind of blunt call where Australia surrenders rare earth minerals, the man is blatantly transparent. He merely want to force settings and he needs the EU a lot more, so Australia gets dealt the ace of spades (I think that was a proper use of that expression). From the wielder who has no morality at all. But as I see it, the commonwealth can come together and sell to the EU, Canada, UK and Middle East for what was meant for the United States. We all still sell, but we merely sell it to someone else. How long will it take the United States to realise that they are setting themselves up for Self-flagellation?

Still, there is more to come, but I suddenly had a thought in the gaming IP selection. You see I decided to replay the first Nordic God of War, because I had not played that game since it came out, so basically I played it into 2019 and that was before I had a 4K TV and it was glorious, now in 4K, the graphics are even more amazing after 7 years and it feels so amazing to play that game. But it also made me consider a few things. You see I have always been a great fan of Dungeon Keeper (1+2) and I also loved Black and White, but what happens when you play a god game and you do not get to wield the players? Merely influence them? So I started to think and as such the game ‘Worship’ was born. You are a deity, a slightly less than mortal person (aka a god) and the first setting are the nordic gods. But here is the kicker. You get the first few games where you learn the game and as such you start playing all the gods, so you can learn the mechanics. You start playing Odin, Thor, Freya and Loki I decided on four gods, because as the game goes deep, you can get 3 other gods involved, the other two tribes get one of the other gods. The game will let you play all the gods so that you learn the mechanics. These tribes are always at each others throat and there is the rub, the game starts with someone praying for mercy at the shrine and that is how you start and the mechanics (even in the learning phase) is about randomization, so you do not know what god you are and there are three tiers of powers, tier 1 is direct and give the least delay for your powers to restore. Tier 2 has a medium cooldown and tier 3 a long cooldown. And the powers you wield will realist in a person, or a small group in a Vé (shrine) you can affect more people and the cooldown is reduced. But beyond that you can not influence the game, the people in the game are like little computer people, all doing their own thing. But part of the settings that as you influence the people in ‘your’ village, you need to see how this is interpreted and how it affects how they face the other village. And through that whatever god ‘aids’ them, they will have both a direct and indirect effect on the interactions. 

I am still working out some of the settings, but in my mind, it shows promise and when the settings are finished the real game begins and you are taken through the stages with the Nordic gods. I thought that after that you get the Greek gods and Egyptian gods. I reckon that after that it will become a mix and match, so village 2 might be one of those pesky Greeks with a sneaky Martian playing Odysseus. You know the kind. And village 3 might be devoted to Sobek. A setting that might turn out to be highly addictive. I am now contemplating how any of the gods could affect the other villages with something like a curse. It is interesting, but the cooldown for the god is also rather nasty, so you want to do that sparingly and only when it becomes essential.

The fun part is how to create the DML engines for the villagers. And as I see it, it requires a separate engine for each village. The computing power is already there, but then I would like this to become a PS5/Switch2 game. This idea of a novel gaming IP is rather invigorating, because there is too much franchise gaming going on. No matter how original and novel Lara now looks. It is still a new version of robbing a tomb (no disrespect meant or intended), Lara got me through some rough times in 1996. But the idea to put something out there that is totally new is rather fun. And even now as I am looking at the game in my mind, I am also setting the interface to a new look for the Nordic/Greek/Egyptian gods. Not merely something that looks fresh, but completely different in the way it looks. You see, the interaction would also be strange (for the player). But this setting leaves me with the randomizers and the choices available to the player. When it ids all nordic, it seems simple. Even as these gods all have different options. How to get the villagers to come to terms with the new equation (to coin a phrase) it is something to consider. That opens up a whole new stage. As the Nordics get into the UK (before they had tea) they had their settings of druids and a few other settings, So there could be a lot more to this game as I see it. Still there is more to do and it is more enjoyable then to look at what other stages the new hands us, because in the end I am not a journalist, I am an IT person and gaming is in my blood and the leads to a lot more interesting puzzles than Washington DC is able to hand us. But that might merely be me. Oh, I just realised that the powers they hand to the villagers could be active or passive, so  wielder of weapons or a thinker of new weapons. That also gets us to the old equation in martial arts, attacking without defense is pointless and defending without attack is useless. So there is more on this game coming to a blog close to you (read: my blog) 

Have a great day, it is Friday here for me now.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 28, 2026 · 19:33

The game of the name

I was made aware of something that ‘kinda’ confirmed my convictions. The story (at https://www.gamesradar.com/games/diablo/diablo-4-lead-says-small-teams-crunch-because-the-company-is-on-the-verge-of-collapsing-but-even-though-its-not-necessary-for-aaa-studios-you-might-still-have-a-culture-of-crunch/) gives us ‘Diablo 4 lead says small teams crunch “because the company is on the verge of collapsing,” but even though it’s not “necessary” for AAA studios, “you might still have a culture of crunch”’ so where we see “Crunch has been an unfortunate aspect of the games industry for about as long as it’s existed, as companies continually push developers to make release dates and deadlines without a care for anyone’s wellbeing. A current member of the team behind Diablo 4 sees it as a harsh truth for smaller studios, whereas bigger ones are more likely to willfully lean into it. Marcin Undak, lead engine engineer on Diablo 4, gave his insight during a conversation attended by GamesRadar+ at Digital Dragons. “I’ve been lucky to not crunch for a really long time now, since I joined bigger companies,” he starts.” So, we get to ““crunch” refers to periods of intense, often mandatory overtime. Developers work grueling schedules—sometimes exceeding 80 to 100 hours a week—to meet strict launch dates, fix bugs, or complete development milestones”, what a weird surprise. Is that the impact of Microsoft interference? I have this gut feeling (so this is biased to extreme measures):

Microsoft: You know what would be great, get the entire set to cut movies of 4K resolution. The people will love it, the crowds will go wild.
Blizzard anonymous employee: That would take an enormous amount of time getting it all to match the gamer character, so that it all fits.
Microsoft: We don’t care, the people want this, we have evidence from other games.
Blizzard AE: Who will sign off on the required time?
Microsoft: Your boss, we gave him a call.

That is how I picture the Microsoft involvement into Blizzard. They seemingly have no idea what they are doing and they forget they basically never did anything in gaming. They bought Mojang (Minecraft), id Software (Doom), MachineGames (Wolfenstein), Arkane Studios (Dishonored) and several others. They never did the groundwork, only the finished product and that game them a fictive sense of self worth. So this is my (massively biased) view and since then they Acquired Bethesda and more, all to get the gamers towards their Ex-Box. But the real gamers don’t care. They like what Sony and Nintendo gives them. They are primed to the best experience gamers can get and it shows with the value that Horizon: Zero Dawn gives us, a game from 2017. Don’t get me wrong, I have been playing Skyrim a hell of a long time (since 2011), but this is not due to Microsoft, this was Bethesda. And lets be fair, I have loved Minecraft since 2010 when it was Mojang and Microsoft has done plenty to keep the curve high, they really did. But as I see it, they are out of their depth because gaming requires art, not business sense. Only the delusional people think that there needs to be business sense in charge and that is clearly wrong. Business sense is at times required, but in the backseat, not in the drivers seat. 

So the article gives us ““I would say the difference is probably, in smaller teams, you are crunching because the company is on the verge of collapsing,” he continues. “It’s the matter of whether we release this game on time, or we all go home because we run out of money. That’s not the case with bigger companies.” With the added “Of course, you might still have a culture of crunch,” he adds. “But I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, so those bigger companies can choose whether they want their people to crunch or not, because they have money to sustain themselves. We are, thankfully, at a point where the practice is becoming less common culturally. More indie teams actively avoid overworking, and there’s more understanding and unity among workers within the industry when it comes to challenging these norms. Alas, for now it’s still occurring, but perhaps with enough people highlighting the problems, that won’t be the case forever.”” And there is of course the ‘added’ link towards “Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred player finds “theoretically infinite” treasure goblin hack to spawn so much loot that the game can’t keep up” with the added “Over 2,400 treasure goblins in a single dungeon proved to be too many” which actually proves my point. These glitches are there to keep some at peace, so that they can say that they got great loot, but as I see it, (from videos, as I never played it myself) Diablo 3 was the pinnacle of gaming and I played it on multiple systems. As I saw Diablo 4 rear its (ugly) head, I saw that this was another franchise blown to smithereens by people who never understood gaming, they merely bought the players that did and I al willing to be that they fired the ones that never adhered to Microsoft standards and the ones that did stayed quiet to keep their income safe.

As such, this is a largely biased view on the view I personally have, so the excuses I see is the setting that BI dodo’s have on gaming and and Project Red and others learned the hard way, they will bite off the idiots that making ‘claims’ including the media that tells them that the gamers ‘demand this’, the gamers know the truth, we will get a game when it is ready, not when some BI dod says it is due. So we are against crunching. We get that some crunching is required, especially when the gold master is done and a few things prop up. This happens, it always does. And whilst we await the next Horizons game (expected in 2027), we will happily wait until it is ready, the first two games were awesome, we want more than that and I was considering that if it comes with the PS6, there will be a upgraded version of the first two games for PS6 as well. \

Going with that, tomorrow I have more IP for Google. I got the idea watching a walk around video on YouTube (you know the application) and I suddenly had an idea, it kinda related to other IP I made, but in a nice gesture to Google (and to piss of Microsoft even further) I will give it to them donations (of $3,000,000 post taxation) will be appreciated. Have a great day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 24, 2026 · 22:18

Just a thought

I just rewatched the Harry Potter series (as one does) and I suddenly thought of a few parts which might be useful for HL2 (Hogwarts Legacy) or HL3. The setting is given that I love replaying a game, especially RPG games and for the most it will be up to Avalanche Software to do or to consider this. The first one was a great hit and there is no reason to change too much of the setup which the people loved. But there needs to be additional ties to a game, not there was anything wrong with the first one, but there is always space to add to what you had and that is where my reengineering skills will assist me. 

The first premise is how to start a person in year six? Then I suddenly realised that there are a few thoughts and this is where I considered that the new student is an exchange student. If the student is male he comes from Durmstrang, if the student is female she comes from Beauxbatons Academy. They also come for a few different reasons, but they are exchange students, so there is ample reason to set the new game in similar (but not completely) similar settings. The map will be the same, although some things will be different and other challenges will come to you. The added stages are Durmstrang and the area around it, as well as Beauxbatons Academy and the area around that place. These sides I leave to Avalanche software. Whilst watching the last HP movie. I got the idea that one of the two schools will face a massive damage setting (the school where you are from) and you get a lot of use from the reparo spell and it can be upgraded to stronger versions, but there is more (there always is) the settings of repairs are bound by your skills as you learn them at Hogwarts. That gave me the idea to have skills intertwined. Reparo can become stronger when you learn Levioso, as such staircases become easily fixable. Better fixing of walls as you learn Accio, Depulso and Flipendo. The stage for an open game remains, but better fixing of things becomes essential to get to parts of the school. And perhaps Avalanche has more (or perhaps even better) ideas. 

Then the setting of the dark spells never felt quite right, because they were unforgivable, But what if we have an option to become a dark wizard or a light wizard? Only dark wizards can do the unforgivable spells, the light wizards have increased shields. It was just a thought. I already voiced the idea for a jobs in an article I wrote called ‘It starts with options’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/27/it-starts-with-options/) and a few more after that you get to start work (of a sort) and there is another setting, the house you are in decides a few options for you. I also set some parts in ‘In dubio’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/03/26/in-dubio/) but the idea was considered. So as the 4 houses have some the same and one unique, optionally with an additional setting for Witches and Wizards, we get a much larger replay setting. You can’t select certain matters when the first game start, but in a subsequent game you get to override the house you are selected in, so to make it all more playable for the returning gamer. 

There are much more options open, but this is a start and the idea that unique spells are obtainable in either Durmstrang or Beauxbatons Academy is also an option, but the larger setting is that Witches are never allowed in Durmstrang and Wizards can not get into Beauxbatons Academy. Sometimes limitations are a benefit, not a hindrance. And as far as I remember, some limitations were last seen in NeverWinter Nights, so that pleases me too. 

And there is as always the idea to get the people to create their own homestead. There are places you can revive or places that you can obtain, and with that we get largely a much bigger setting. Even with the Hogwarts area map. They should be the same map, but other settings will be added and perhaps a few more additions in enemies and traps might be considered. But I leave that to Avalanche software. Anyway these ideas (consider IP) I freely hand over to Avalanche software. Perhaps they can use it, perhaps not. But there is always the chance that these thoughts will be valued and it might open a few other additions to a game. I am not trying to tell them what to do, their first attempt was quite good, excellent even. But my brain will mull over anything it sees and that is what my brain does. So have a great day, time to watch the Jedi order be destroyed (3rd movie).

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

May 23, 2026 · 10:07

Press X to race

There was an article in LinkedIn and it reminded me of an idea that I spouted on my blog. It took a moment, but I wrote it on February 16h 2022, it was called ‘Gift for the militant wench’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/16/gift-for-militant-wench/). So whilst I was looking at the image with the text “Wow! You can now simulate real world places by grounding Genie 3 generations with Street View imagery. Google sitting on the mother lode of real world data, and is starting to put it to work!” Nice for some to wake up, but I got there 4 years ago. And the blog is the evidence. In a setting where I wrote. “So in my sleep I was racing through the street, there were paths, obstacles and my mind was making sense of it all (which took a few seconds) and I was seeing the brilliance of that Nintendo kart game that can take place in your home. A good idea, but I gave it steroids and turned it into something serious. You see, there are the F1 people, who love the F1, want to race on their tracks, want to be an F1 driver and this is not for them, There are good products and they are happy there. No, this is for the people who want to race in the real world.” I got there 4 years ago, that is how asleep some developers are. I still think that the non-serious setting of real world and a Mario kart (or wacky races) works the best. For the serious racer there is Gran Turismo or Forza and as I see it, these are decent products. Racing them to overtake is not that eventful. But Wacky Races is down and out, Mario Kart is for Nintendo devices, as such there is a gap for Sony and they could release it on Nintendo as well. A market that I saw over 4 years ago and someone could have opened that door, but as you see alas, and now we see on LinkedIn that is is an awesome option. So whilst we see “Can’t wait till this grounding ability extends to fused aerial + ground imagery for a large area of interest. One helluva interactive canvas for humans and machines alike.” I was there over 208 weeks ago. As I see it, someone is asleep in a few places. A setting that could invigorate a new Franchise like Wacky Races, there is another setting, and that is perhaps a little niche. If the graphics are real, you could have a fun addition based on the Brigades du Tigre (1912), organized by French Prime Minister Georges Clemencea, and they race is on the tracks of the Tour de France. A wink at Ubisoft (as they lost enough revenue), but the idea that it isn’t speed, but the Renault Type EK might be fun ride to, optionally you could unlock the 1930 Talbot M67 11 six, or the 1932 Citroën C4 G Torpédo night be a fun addition. We all seek speed, whilst the fun of driving shouldn’t be ignored and as such there are plenty of other ideas. And the main machine (not the mean machine) would be where it becomes a setting of speed with kart traffic, or more graphical perfection with the slower older kin that the Ford model T offers. As I said, these were merely ideas that sprouted from the original and that is to let people race in their neighborhood and that will have a larger appeal, especially with the younger racers among us. Still to see that others see the option 4 years later gives me my validation, I wonder when they will see that they themselves denied themselves billions of dollars in revenue. 

One can only hope, have a great day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 22, 2026 · 21:37

A snag in the process

That is how I see it, Ubisoft is in trouble and even after I basically handed them a key worth billions and they merely had to adjust what they already had in a new product, but here (at https://www.gamerbraves.com/ubisoft-and-the-fall-from-grace-how-one-of-gamings-biggest-names-lost-its-way/) we see ‘Ubisoft and the Fall From Grace: How One of Gaming’s Biggest Names Lost Its Way’ and I believe that the fall started when someone at Ubisoft gave us “an Assassin’s Creed every year”, which refers to Ubisoft’s famous and polarizing “annualized” release strategy. For nearly a decade, the franchise pumped out a massive new mainline title almost every single calendar year, and it might sound nice, but the bugs were not so nice and the stage was seen from AC Unity onwards and the bugs were the worst and a lot of them were not fixed as such the consumers did not trust the AC brand any longer. Unity (2014) started it all and it did not get better. I personally believe that AC Origin has one flaw (not a bug) but the game was really good, the setting was near perfect and it was a decent stealth game, they then copied it in AC Odysee and they made a good game a lot worse. After that the bugs in Valhalla were one would say hilarious, others would dump the game. But the biggest mistake was to ignore the one rule I live by “When you try to appease everyone, you merely please no one” and we got to see this again and again. Then we get to the weird setting, as I see it AC Shadows is magnificent, the Japanese style is great and there is a rather large setting, the one flaw is the boss games, still veering away from the AC setting and we are given “Market analysis firms estimate the base game generated upwards of $180 million to $200 million in gross revenue, with up to 4 million copies reportedly sold across the PS5, Xbox, and Steam.” All whilst some sources give us that up to 38 million copies were made from AC Origins from 2017 onwards. I believe that AC Shadows got a raw deal, but it is not up to us. It was up to Ubisoft to create a safe atmosphere for gamers and that was not done, as such the Ubisoft empire was dropped like a bad habit and by trying to “appease everyone, you merely please no one” and that is seen again and again. Even now the world is holding its breath for AC Hexe, there is no clear release date (as far as I know), but the larger audience is waiting for the release and the review before they will bite. And leaks (through reddit) with lines like “Assassin’s Creed Hexe got leaked and it’s fu**** incredible” people have bumped their nose into bad materials a little too often. So when we see “To understand how far Ubisoft has fallen, you first have to appreciate how high it once stood. At its peak, the scale was staggering. Assassin’s Creed alone has sold over 230 million units across the franchise and accumulated 155 million unique players. Far Cry has sold over 60 million copies, while Just Dance has moved over 80 million units and attracted over 120 million players. Rainbow Six Siege, launched in 2015 as a tactical shooter that many initially wrote off, quietly became one of the most played games in the world, with over 85 million registered users at its peak.” Then we get the ‘numbers’ giving us “Ubisoft just recently published its full financial results for fiscal year 2026, covering the 12 months ending March 31, 2026, and the numbers are stark. Revenue came in at €1.4 billion, down 21.8% compared to the previous year. Net bookings fell 17.4% year-over-year to €1.5 billion. Digital net bookings dropped 16% to €1.33 billion. The final quarter of the fiscal year, covering January to March 2026, was the worst of it: revenue collapsed 47.3% in those three months alone, while net bookings fell 54% to €415 million. Operating losses widened from €196.5 million the prior year to €1.3 billion, a figure that reflects the full cost of the company’s restructuring, including write-downs tied to seven cancelled projects and six delayed games.” We then get “Star Wars Outlaws was supposed to be a statement. Released in August 2024 with a massive development budget and a lengthy, widespread marketing campaign behind it, the open-world Star Wars adventure was exactly the kind of high-profile, licensed blockbuster Ubisoft needed to deliver. Instead, it seriously struggled for sales. Players pointed to uninspired gameplay and technical problems at launch, and the reviews reflected that disappointment. Following its release, Ubisoft’s revenue in the first half of fiscal year 2025 fell nearly 20% compared to the same period the year before.” So why these reminders? I believe that Ubisoft spread itself too much, too many projects, too many people and we see seven cancelations? That is the other side of appeasement, it comes through a lack of focus and as we saw going forward from AC Unity, there was plenty of focus lost. Then we get the delays, six of them? What were those costs? As I see it, Ubisoft spread itself too thin (or perhaps better stated over too many projects) and there is a cost for that, take that towards appeasing too many people and the losses start making sense. And I am not stepping on the legal problems they had, perhaps that is the price of not educating your staff, I have no idea, but we then see “One of the more painful stories to come out of this period involves Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. The game received positive reviews from critics but failed to meet the sales expectations of Ubisoft, leading to the development team being disbanded and a planned sequel being scrapped.” It is the second stage of a problem. You see, who were those critics? And how were these sales expectations set? I am a simple man a game is either good or it is not. And there is then the setting if it is a game I like playing or not. I was never a GTA5 fan, I see its excellence, but it is not for me and that is not on the maker, it is merely on me. The simple setting that most forget is that a game is made for a type of player. So whilst we see “Ubisoft reported a €159 million loss for fiscal year 2024-2025, with a 20.5% drop in net bookings. Poor performances from other titles offset the strong sales from Assassin’s Creed Shadows.” I personally see that Ubisoft spread itself too thin, but I could be wrong, I merely see this and saw a few more articles and that is the conclusion I am making. Perhaps the inner circle of Ubisoft needs a reset, an overhaul. The gaming audience changed and the true gamers do not care too much for system oriented influencers, no matter how good they are. If I like a game there is every chance I will replay it, I played AC Origin twice completely and I loved every moment of it. I might not be a standard gamer, but I replay what I really like. The games of Bethesda for example and some go the Ubisoft games. But I am not one of those ‘quick play for the achievements and then sell the game for another game’ Perhaps there is a misalignment between Ubisoft and me and what we think gamers are. But still I believe that one rule “When you try to appease everyone, you merely please no one” and there is the setting that I am a fan of “Those who use a formula to get a decent game, will never produce a great game” I believe this to be true and that clashes directly with the stage of creating a franchise game every year. I might be wrong, but it is what I believe and the results of Ubisoft are proving my version to be likely right. But then the article gives us a gem “Forgetting What Players Actually Want” and that is the larger setting I have been pouring over. And with “Its market capitalization has fallen by approximately 85% since January 2021. Dozens of studios have been closed or downsized, hundreds of developers have lost their jobs, and several long-awaited projects have been quietly killed off.” as I see it, both rules I live by seems to have been lost on Ubisoft and as I see it, it costed them 85% of their business. This is not a small thing, this means that management requires a massive overhaul, because 85% loss means that it is a lot more then the employees, management failed to a large degree. Is there an easy option? I think that Ubisoft needs to reinvent themselves and try to safe their products one at a time. How? I have no idea, I am a designer of IP and a re-engineer. I am not management, we are different life forms.

Have a great day, my weekend almost started and my Saturday is a mere 148 minutes away.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,