Tag Archives: gaming

January 2, 2021 · 23:25

Copyright? Copy left

As a trained IP attorney (minus the experience), I am always in line with IP and the traps and tricks are to some degree well known to me, so one question with any design my mind makes is “Is it more alike to the previous version, or not?” This is important, I have no doubt that making TESVII: Restoration myself implies that Bethesda (or their legal team) calls and demands all the materials I copied with an added cease and desist and that would be fair, IP is protected and I will not copy what is not mine, but a good idea is a good idea and that is a larger stage. As such, my mind has been considering a new version of seven cities of gold and when I saw new, I mean totally new. The part of exploration is pretty much the only part that not all mine, but that is too generic as such my version has options. 

As such the game is in two settings, the first one is the original world, with all the bells and whistles and the gamer can start (and should start there) so that he or she can get their feet wet. After this and after the immediate training, you can start a second game, a new game, yet this version will redesign the world, so you will be in a massively new area, an area that differs largely from the original. It will design a new map roughly 1000 by 1000 miles, you start in one part, and that is 200 by 200 miles. You get to explore, map, set sights and start foundations. You get to build a fort, from the fort you grow a trade post, from there a village, a town and if you are good enough a city. But it is not merely ‘building’, you have vassals for that. A city with infrastructure, religion, logistics, a setting that grows with every choice you make yet it is not that mundane. As I was thinking it through, I was listening to Jordi Savall, and a  consideration grew, what if music is part of growth? As the town band grows, its music increases, all production goes up, yet not always, some react to the beat, some to tempo and some to melody, as you set the stage for the local music, you set in motion a choice. We explore and we find, but there is a sort of randomiser in play, so not everything will be there, some parts will be, some will not, some area’s will have hides, a forest has lumber and as we explore what is and what can be grown, we alter the foundation of growth, the game needs to be entertaining, but it can be educational as well. When we played Civilisation, we had the research to make changes, what if something like that is in the game, but different? What if we had writings, but we set a larger stage with laws, we make choices, common law or civil law, later the introduction of accounting, criminal law and taxation, but they can only come into effect if certain conditions are met. And when the addition is made we see the larger benefit, politics, republic, monarchy, all choices that impact the bottom line of life, but we need to see the changes in a larger stage, the settings of natural laws, the benefit of a nameless religion (in the beginning there was a benefit), yet all these elements are in a different shape, this is not civilisation. So what happens when the world is a 1000 by 1000 miles and you can run through it all? Transport becomes important, we start with horses, and as we see more and more challenges, we can also fathom the impact. We get to shape the world as we see it, as we want it to be. Run around like in AC Brotherhood, but here there are no shops, no banks and no buildings, we get to build it all. Build to close together and space becomes a problem, choose the wrong location and you might be cut off from resources a town needs, we want an exploration game that is true to reality and the new consoles allow for that, cloud gaming allows for that. So when you see the AC Brotherhood map below, consider that 25 times the size, if the X and Y axes represented 10 miles, consider it now at 50 miles in each direction, and that is merely stage one.

What more, whenever you make a new game, you get a new map and you have no idea where you are so navigation and cartography become important, no YouTube in that space, in 1607 JamesTown was founded, consider that stage and see if you can do better, a game that has its own little sidesteps, because wildlife could kill you as you ride too far away, no option to get back in time, as such you will see the results of choices. Seven cities of gold was a great idea and what they got out of the CBM64 with 38Kb of space was pretty awesome, so we can take that idea and evolve it into something really serious and from there we get something entirely new, something never seen before, and all this in a third person view, not a top view that is map like, but the actual view, and consider that you might be playing a very different set of rules from your best friend, you can actually consider discussing what the best road to act is, a game setting we rarely see. 

Is it doable? 
I believe it is, the new consoles, PC’s and cloud consoles (Google Stadia) can easily deal with it, the question is, can it be done in such a way to entice the player to dip its toe in the exploration waters and see what will come next? I am game, but I am merely one view, there is a commercial side to this and a game designed to appeal to 10-499 people is not a triumph, it is a niche that has no place to go, it is the 3-5 million group we want to reach, that makes a setting achievable and something worth pursuing. It is merely my view on the matter, but I believe that banking on value for money is never a bad idea. 

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December 11, 2020 · 23:36

What gives experience?

Hah! I did not give up, I persisted and it came to me. I was looking at a way to set levelling in the RPG game that I discussed in previous blogs and I have a handle on it now. You see, Bethesda was not wrong, they were merely incomplete (as I personally see it). They almost got it right in the past but they set a different premise (something they are allowed to do), as such, in the RPG I devised there is a different jump. The artisans, the members of arcane houses, they all have settings of levels, but they are all DIFFERENT. It took me a while to set that premise. So as I started to discuss them in ‘Playing the stage’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/18/playing-the-stage/), there I started with the House of Forests, and introduced the Floating house. It was in ‘Invoke the liquid mountain’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/20/invoke-the-liquid-mountain/) where I mentioned House of Chimes and I almost forgot about the Monks of the Sulphur Cave and the House of Bones. There is some (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/22/chimes-are-wind-translators/), and it did not dawn on me to make the levelling different for each class. As forests can only exist by preserving it, as such the power and levelling of druids come from seeing the sick trees and save them or kill them and replaced the killed tree by a new sapling. As his staff is instrumental it will be the focal point of experience and levelling. A similar (but not the same) approach can be used on the Monks of the Sulphur Caves. It is different for the members of the Floating House, the water specialists. It would make them swimmers and water breathes, but that would be too shallow, they are rain invokers and their experience is set to the amount of spells they cast. As I am showing now, I am not completely there yet, but as we are confronted with a player that has an arcane and an artisan cast, we see different levelling systems, you have to become more aligned with the person you create. Gender might no longer be a real concern, but the choice of arcane and artisan house more so. If we see this we are looking at one of five and one of four levelling systems, we will not now, not ever become all round specialists of everything, but that is the price we get for something new. It also sets a different focal point in taking out enemies and overcoming barricades in the game. It is perhaps not completely original, but in this shape it is completely new. We can be an expert, the expert, we merely cannot be the expert in everything, it seems lacking Zen, but I believe that this approach will make the game a more Zen experience. I reckon that this will also create an optional very new ‘New Game+’ version. Where we optionally reincarnate with part of the abilities of the previous life, but not the powers derived from them, an option to have additional stamina and a larger setting of magical hubris (read: mana), it is merely a stage and this gives me the setting where I designed the larger stage for a few options in less than 4 weeks all by myself (yay me). Or as I would optionally say “Ubisoft eat your heart out”, but that is just me. So I got some of the arcane done, a larger stage of levelling, now I need to concentrate on the larger main stories and some of the side stories. Perhaps I will put them here too soon enough. 

All this and it is not even midnight yet. Whatever will I do next?

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December 11, 2020 · 11:07

Tripped by a thought

Yup, this happens. We watch things, we read things and it mixes into an idea. The first element in this was the movie Kingdom of Heaven (by Ridley Scott). I love this movie, for some reason it feels more real than any of the other movies that are founded on the crusades are. There are a few other reasons, there is always a good reason to watch any movie with Orlando Bloom and Alexander Siddig and the fact that it also had Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons and several others did not hurt that cause either. I was struck by the charisma that Ghassan Massoud brought to the screen in Kingdom of Heaven. That movie is pretty much forever in the back of my mind. The second element was something I read. The quote “An ifrit can further be bound to a sorcerer, if summoned”, as well as “In the latter account, the “ifrit among the jinn” threatens Muhammad with a fiery presence, whereupon the archangel Gabriel taught Muhammad a Du’a (Islamic prayer) to defeat it”, this struck a chord as it is the only reference I have seen at present where Christian faith and Islamic faith crosses (perhaps there are more). But it got me thinking. What happens if an Afreet, a dweller of the sands is confronted by the invasion armies of the west? The Crusaders, the Templars, the Teutons, and some of these organisations still exist today. So what happens when an Afreet goes on a quest to understand the enemy of its sands? The idea is not entirely new, the Afreet made an appearance in True Blood and in American gods, but in both cases it is less seen from the view of the Afreet, and as a demon they are part immortal, or at least can exist for thousands of years, anyone with that level of timespan has a different view on matters. As such the Afreet can be in the past and the present giving us a very different stage.

We have been so obsessed with the western folklore, that we forget that there is a large area of folklore that has almost never been tapped into and when we consider that Netflix is present in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, I wonder why we get this oversight. Of course they can also go for the other movie I came up with ‘How to kill a politician’ which optionally might be a big hit in the Islamic world, it might not be something that a person like Geert Wilders likes, but it is a door he opened himself and France added spice to that soup. 

All options I did in mere hours, as such I wonder what is keeping some so called creators in creating actual new stuff (instead of a new version of old stuff). It is as I personally see it the difference between iterative and innovative. A stage that America is shifting in, they are moving more and more towards iterative because they can no longer find the innovative people. A sad state of affairs as I personally see it.

Is it me? Am I tripped by a thought, or am I seeing it correctly that we are missing out on true innovation in both movies and TV series? I am not ignoring the stage where we are told that there are “In 2019, the number of original scripted television series in the United States hit 532”, I am not doubting that, I am merely noticing that other places in the world, these series are missing, or not shown. And to be honest, I have my doubt on all 532 series being actual innovative series. There is nothing wrong with iterative series, but they are a prolongation of something else. Another CSI, another NCIS, another Star Trek, another Superman. I will agree that there are plenty of fans for them, but at times we need to offer something so new people gasp at the notion of difference. I get the setting that this does not always ends up being positive (Firefly, Dollhouse) but they were true innovations, they were different and they have scores of fans, but it was not meant to be. I get it and perhaps my ideas will never become reality either, but I remain innovative in my thinking, it did lead to several 5G IP parts and I expect a few more in the coming year. 

Yet in this I do not pursue a path, I let it was over me just like the Afreet did, just like the soon to be dead politician (in the Movie) and the stage of being between two universes (Keno Diastima), a stage I found in mere hours, yes I agree they are not finished, yet I did most of the work by myself in mere hours. So I wonder what others are capable of making, even if we do not see these results on Netflix, Stan, Youtube or TV. I wonder what became of the 532 series, because so far what we get to see is “Find Out Which Series Will Return for Another Season”, a stage that we accept, but there is more then returning series, they are an accepted and essential part of TV (and streaming), but where is all the new stuff? 

It is a thought that is tripping me and making me trip (to coin a phrase).

And all this is happening whilst I am trying to find a new and original way of levelling up a character in the RPG I have been writing about. We tend to see RPG’s in missions, kills and achievements. I want the levelling to be different, but I am still seeking a way, perhaps I will return to the mission stage of levelling up, but I am trying to avoid it, an RPG can only stand on its feet when it offers more and different stages, not merely more of the same, we have all seen that and as such I am considering other methods, yet the thought of how is not clicking into the frame of mind and the frame of gaming, yet I hope that to be a temporary thing for now.

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November 28, 2020 · 21:39

8 missed opportunities

Yup, we all miss things at time, You, me, we all do. At times it is for the simple reason that we were unaware of issues (or opportunities), at times it is because we cannot get bothered. This latter part is not that simple. We cannot get bothered, because we lack certain skills, which is fair enough, and there is the stage where a person does not understand the opportunity missed, which is also fair enough. There is no blame in either case, now consider Google, they have been at it for a year trying to flog their console to the world, Sony taught them long ago that the power of a console is games. They did and proved that on their PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PR4pro and they will do it again on the PS5. So when I see Google waste options on the Google Stadia, several with optional micro transactions, I wonder what they are up to. A person can miss some signs, to miss 8 opportunities takes effort, even for a team it takes effort to miss that much, so what gives?

There is an optional chance that in 2021 the Amazon Luna could surpass the Google Stadia especially if their teams waste opportunity, I wonder if that will happen. Apple Arcade will continue regardless, it almost fuels itself and these so called AAA developers (Ubisoft, Bethesda, EA et al) will flog their games that are on every system, but the power of a console is finding something their that none of the others have, Sony explained that to them, didn’t they?

As such I wonder what Google is up to and if they are taking their Google Stadia seriously, it is not a shame if they do not, but that takes them out of the race soon enough. Luna, the Amazon Luna will love that, Apple will like it too, but they have other concerns soon enough. So, we will leave them alone. As I see it, Google optionally missed 8 opportunities, 8 times they could have had something the others did not, I wonder why that is. 

So as we consider the stage, I saw that someone rejected (or abandoned) their option, as such I see opportunity. Then there is the stage where I had a small go in one direction and I see transgression from concept to optional design stage and there is the stage where we see a rejected idea that could be redesigned into something workable. All stages that go somewhere, will they go towards a finished product? That is not for me to state, I merely see the development of what could be, that is at present all I can do. Oh and that I before we consider a stage that we never looked at, it seems an unworthy jab, and it is not meant to be as such, but who knows the lists of games of Microprose? Covert Action, Knights of the Sky, Silent Service, Masters of Orion, 4 titles, often overlooked, but games to make a difference for players, a long term difference to a large number of players over time. Now, I am not aware of the rights and where they are, yet who investigated this? Were these titles investigated? The list goes on and on, and there are two elements to consider

  1. Reinventing the wheel is often easier (as well as cheaper if there is no locked IP)
  2. These games are 30 years old, they can be made better, more inviting and optionally keep people entertained longer. 

We look at what is cool, we look at what is now, but the Google Stadia cannot compete with the PS4, PS5 or these new Microsoft consoles. So they cannot rely on things that are out there too. But they can make a difference and get a larger advantage over Amazon Luna and Apple Arcade, yet it seems that they are at present not doing that, I wonder why.

It is not the stage where they have a lot of time, the moment Luna or Apple get traction, that might  become the end of Google Stadia, is that what they are aiming for, if so, they are doing a decent job of it. 

The fact that my mind redesigned three games in a day and Google shows us the same list for Google Stadia games, oh and that is before you consider the congestion on 4G, it might not matter in the cities, but all over the EU and commonwealth (the US too), rural players will get massive amounts of internet congestion, when you realise that Google Stadia will see an expected larger issue with Cyberpunk 2077, Watchdogs: Legion, AC Valhalla, Destiny 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Fr Cry 6, AC: Odyssey, Division 2 and a few more, so when we take non metropolitan France, non metropolitan Germany, non Metropolitan Italy, and several US *and Canadian) states out of the equation, it does not leave the Google Stadia a lot to work with, they needed to set a very different focus, especially as they knew the congestion issues would be a much larger part of the equation. I merely wonder why there was no adjustment made on day zero, as such this was a decently clear setting on November 18th, 2019, Covid merely enhanced that flaw, so why were there no visible actions taken? I understand that some of the games are not the high killer resolution, but a game you can play still beats a game that is stopped through congestion, and when we consider that Fallout Shelter has well over 150,000,000 downloads, as such over the last 3 years well over 100,000,000 played the game, does it make sense that the Google stage should not be limited to the high resolution games? I have played Fallout Shelter on EVERY system I own, it was never dull on any of them. As such I hope that Google takes a page out of the Sony bible and takes a look at the Nintendo Bible, neither is regarded as gospel, but they are the ruling systems, so ignoring their views is a bigger no-no than you imagine. 

I wonder what happens when Google misses 11 opportunities, will there be cake? They say that 11 is a karmic number and as I see it, some spiritual awakening and awareness would not go amiss at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain view. Yet, that is merely my view on the stage of missed opportunities.

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November 21, 2020 · 21:18

The Old stuff

I have it at times, I do not know about you, but at times I want to see the old movies, play the old games, listen to the old sounds. It allows me to balance my feelings about a game, let me mesmerise on other ideas, contemplate thoughts, a whole range of actions become available when I do that what I had done before. So, as I watched Robocop (2014), It’s a wonderful life (1946), Planet of the Apes (1968), listened to the golden oldies by Madonna and Rammstein, my mind wandered as I was playing Fallout 4 again, thinking of Fallout 3. Two games I really liked. At that point my mind started to wander, what if we could play Planet of the Apes as a RPG. Consider the 6 original movies. What if the setting of the game was in the era of Charlton Heston, but covered close to the entire east coast? Optionally merely Rhode Island (the state) and as DLC’s within a year to add Massachusetts and Connecticut. Consider the amount of exploring one could do, find the old stages, create villages against a physical and morally superior force. Finding books setting the stage of a history group, a science group, a medical group. Find books for them to evolve, finding books to teach the next generation. Finding skills that can be transferred to books teaching the next group. A multigenerational game, so as the previous group becomes to old, you can transfer (with the right group enabled) to the next generation. No RPG has done this before. When you consider this, is it not weird that no game (in light of so many copying each other’s concepts) that something original can be staged. 

I am not sure when the ideas started to mingle, but the setting is there. A stage where the game is NOT on one person, but it is your stage to create a much larger foothold as you create generations for you to move from one to the next generation. It should also have drawbacks. The older person learns faster and learns more, the younger person can find more, can achieve more faster, a set of balances to chose from.

I also see the interactions with other books, for example (an idea I had last year), the setting of a prequel to Soylent Green with Chris Hemsworth in the lead. Yet what if we add Soylent Green (without the dead people) to the mix? What if the sea becomes the larger food provider again? The setting where the books and skills result in advanced options? It is merely a setting, a stage to draw and see what connections we can make. If great apes cannot swim, is the start on an island not perfect? It will not get you far, but as a training, the game can help you get the maximum out of the game, before you find a small Rigid Inflatable Boat. The initial game with a mapped 3,140 km² before we add 27,363 km², another thing we have not seen before (that is apart from my version of Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration), the continuation of a game, you keep what you create and we see  much larger consideration when the expansion comes, will we start again, or do we go on? OK, it might not be completely feasible on 1:1, yet 1:100, or 1:1000 might work. Yet in that stage we ned to adjust. And that is before you realise that it will be a much larger consideration when we add regions that are internationally largely unknown. Apart from the fact that (as far as I know) has never been done before becomes the creation of a much larger IP for any software house.

And whenever you go over the old stuff, the chance is that your mind makes silent Connections that could be diamonds for any one person to consider. It is the power of the old stuff, because we were done with it and we forgot what it contained. So as our minds see it again, time will be a larger stage for our minds, it does not re-create old links (will to some degree it does), it will create new connections, because you have seen other things over the last 3-7 years that you had not seen this work, or listened to it. I reckon that not watched Planet of the Apes for almost 2 years and a lot of things happened in that time, so we see things differently and we connect to it in other ways too. I have no evidence of this, it is merely my thought on the matter, yet s it got me a new concept (apart from the 4 I already have) not a bad days work.

Well, that is it for me for today. Perhaps I have more to add to the idea of Simian World tomorrow, you never know what Spinach does to the brain. For me it is agony, because for some reason I feel the massive need to have Tourte Pascale, my mum used to make it and now for some reason I want it, now after 3 decades (it might be four), I feel the massive yearn to get my fingers on a slice. Life is hell at times, so I will leave you with an image I found online, so that you will become as equally hungry as I am at this very moment.

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October 22, 2020 · 23:10

Chimes are wind translators

The stage was not set in this day, there was another day and another week, but the origin of the order was always known, each mistress of the house kept records of what happened, and they also tend to keep record when things did not happen, or more precisely when nothing happened. The scope of all gave the exceptions power and made them more insightful. The first Mistress of the house of chimes always knew that. The House of Chimes was a little different, even as they knew that the monks of the liquid mountain had the strength from within, the house of chimes bestowed powers. The mistress did from day one. Only women were allowed in this house, it was not because there was something wrong with the men, but for some reason the power could not be handed to another man. The mistress suspected that a similar reason existed with the cave of monks. The House of Chimes had one mistress in charge, two teachers and each teacher had 4 students. As the mistress gave power to all in the beginning, they learned over time that the powers were shaped by the teachers. As the powers of each student grew stronger in the first 10 years, it would not grow stronger after that. That had always been the case, yet the powers would mature more and more as the students slept in the houses of the teachers. There was no real explanation for that. It was possible for students to learn more than one speciality, but that required the student to spend more time in the house of chimes with the second teacher. One teacher taught the student the powers of the wind, the other would teach the students the powers of the lightning, that is how it had always been. These women had a staff with at the top an empty vial. The staff was made from a combination of wood and silver, with a silver lightning symbol surrounding the vial. The women had the ability to call for wind and tornado’s. Beyond that they could summon lightning. Even was some might not have ben impressed, their abilities are set in speed. They can move fast, really fast and as the wind goes around a person, the wind informs them and highlights dangers, animals and people. Even the weakest lightning will cripple any person hit by it, or so the story goes. The women are natural healers and illusionists. The wind makes nearly everything light as a feather, and allowed them to climb near vertical walls. Their last ability is merely whispered about, it has not be seen, the women have the ability to throw voices and more important make sounds that will deafen anyone who hear it. All seemingly useless powers, but that is only to the untrained. If you cannot hear anyone, you cannot hear them approach or get away, that is if their lightning hadn’t twisted you in some bizarre way. 

It was a soft night, there was close to no wind when the student walked over the hill. She was looking around her and saw no one. The dark was comforting, ever as the night was dark, she saw near perfect, the and would warn her of dangers and that was good, not only because she hd no lust to cause harm to an animal, she was not too fond of damaging brigands either. It seemed so pointless. She got to a fork when she noticed the fog in the distance, the fog seemed so unnatural. It has a local look, no more than 200 meters in diameter it was then that she noticed the 4 shapes, they looked like brigands and she held her staff a little tighter, it was then she noticed a fifth shape in the fog, this shape was clearly a man, but he looked different, even as the brigands were red, as they always were, the fifth shape was light yellow, light as the sun. He seemed to avoid the others and struck one after another with a precision strike. She considered that this was someone from the floating house, she hd heard of them, but this was the first time that she saw one. She kept her distance and saw the entire event unfold, the brigands had no real chance. She also noticed that the brigands were not dead. Merely out for the count, and as the fog lifted she noticed the floating house member walk away. She watched him for a little while from a far safe distance, and as he went north towards the village, she walked in eastern direction. It was her first encounter with one of them, she was not about to test his feelings towards diplomacy. It was then that she noticed the hollow tree, this tree was different, she had never seen one like this before, there was a clear drop down, and there was a a corridor of sorts under the tree. She considered a few things, and the only thing pushing her was her curiosity, she contemplated the action and she hesitated for a second and jumped into the hole. 

This was the 4th house. We have one more house to add to the mixture it will be the house of bones. The story cannot merely rely on the 4 elements and in this we set the stage for necromancers to enter the fold. When we consider the House of Forests, The Floating House, Monks of the Sulphur Caves, the House of Chimes and the House of Bones, we have 5 houses. A person can only become a member of one, we set the stage of replayability. The player is not limited to the house, that person can also become an artisan or guild member. A larger stag is required and we only looked at the arcane part. My biggest issue with The Elder Scrolls is not a negative one, they had a good grasp of anything, but the stage where a person can be EVERYTHING was a little off putting. If a skilled master is merely a skilled master in one, then the stage of a larger power was close to impossible. Yes I loved Skyrim, but I had become so powerful that my Dragonbone bow was able to kill close to any dragon with a few arrows. Too much of it came across as a little bit of a steeple chase, not a challenging one. As I chewed on these elements I set a different light for playing the RPG game. If I can set the stage of a 100 hour game and make sure that these people can play the game 5 times and in different settings they would end up with a 500 hour game, a good value. So I set pout in a different direction, where the choices you make will decide where you wake up (sorry Richard). It has been done before but s fr as I know my RPG games, only once. So as we are on an island that is 200Km by 175Km, there is every chance to play the game more than once and see different settings (well I try). 

A stage that is not merely replayable, the stage where the path in a cave, a mine, or an underground fortress is different for a floating house member or a house of bones member. You can have multiple goals in any one place, but a person can only do one. It also leaves us with the stage where a person can get stuck in a place where you need one skill, but the lack of it stops you. Issues that are very real but the RPG seems to shy away from that path, there is a Montessori approach to gaming, you have to get a price, you have to win, there is always a price. It seemingly makes for weak adventurers. And I have the sage where it is different, now if we add time played (like 1 year for every 10 hours played), we get a career stage where you can become a better hero than the previous hero you played. To do this we set the stage that there needs to be  a larger story to follow and the graveyard can have merely have one type of hero, which lives you with 5 people to play (a wink to Diablo), so as such we see the larger stage, but I am merely at the start of it all, now that I know what the fifth house will be, I can consider the next stage, because in any RPG game, the story is everything. And gain this is free public domain for any Sony exclusive.

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October 19, 2020 · 23:16

Door two of the arcane

It is time to continue the promise I made myself, and as such I want to introduce you to the floating house. The floating house is the house of a medicine man at the edge of the land, close to the oceans and close to the plains. The people graduating here have mastered the elements of water in all shapes. The people who lives in the floating house can change moist into shard of ice, sharper than any blade, they can cool the land, water the fields and turn lakes into roads. They can create fog so dense that people next to one another cannot see one another. The people from the floating house are always welcomed by those working the fields, especially in time of drought. The origins of the Floating house are unknown, the house was suddenly there and a medicine man claimed it. Over time he learned more than others ever before and the floating house become home to 7 masters and 12 students, only when two graduate two new are admitted. Sometimes one becomes a teacher, when one teacher is closing the end of its life, the call is made and those who can hear it Make way back to the Floating house and submit themselves for inspection by the head of the Floating house. This is how it has been for many many generations. 

The second door
I wandered through the fields, I felt the wheats going through my fingers, the wheat was healthy., strong and nourishing. The waters had done their job in creating a good harvest. Even as I was looking over the fields, I felt heat, intense heat. I looked round, but the glow I expect to see with this heat was missing. I saw two houses, the fields were ok, I looked again and then I saw it. The larger house was radiating heat, a lot of it. As I walked towards the house, I summoned the moist, I focussed it on the house and the rains started, faster and harder, yet the heat remained. Then the side of the house exploded. The heat was overwhelming, and the heat came without large flames. As I walked close to the open side I saw what was going on, there was a lava pond in the house, not a place where it usually came, only the Monks of the Sulphur Cave could this. Their acne knowledge was unknown to anyone but the Monks themselves. These monks were not evil, but their powers were highly destructive, so whatever had set this monk off was something that had to be dealt with, at least if this fine harvest was not to to end up being a pile of charcoal.

I looked at the pool and had an idea, I concentrated on the moist, then turned it to rain, then turned the rain solid and let it slam the roof harder and harder, within a minute the roof was gone and the pond got hammered by icy cold hail. It took a few seconds before the pool turned darker, then darker still and as the blackness of the pond was seen, the heat dissipated. I looked to the fields, they were safe, but the larger stage was not resolved. I decided to walk down the hill, there was a village there, I could feel it, I would hide in the barns and listen to what was going on, perhaps I would learn what had angered the monks, I preferred not to interfere, a monk was not clumsy or taken to whimsy. I felt happy that I saved crops, but I needed to learn what the issues were in this place.

The members of the Floating house are masters of water, as such also ice wielders, they are driven by stealth, sneakiness, covertness and clandestine actions. They believe that the limelight is counterproductive. They help and aid in secrecy, the fog is a great way to hide, nothing hides from them, but the people in the fog cannot see anything and the light fog would carry the voices of any conversation for the longest distance making eavesdropping a good way to find out what was going on. The water staff is a staff of metal with a globe on two thirds filled with water and an uncut diamond representing ice at the top. The staff was more than an arcane relic, only the members of the Floating house could hold them, the reason is actually unknown to all but a few, Not even all the graduates of the Floating house knew that part. 

Premise
Here we now see a premise of two houses, one is out to fight and to be open, the other sets the stage covertly. Like any RPG we have several sider that we want to explore and even as some games try to give students all the options to be everything, there is a larger wisdom in giving limitations. Missions can not always be done in the same way, as such we see one mission having an optional 5 narrations into the same mission. It might not always pan out that way, but the stage might be inviting to a whole range of gamers, the game they play the way they prefer to play it, and optionally a stage where they learn to play it differently.

It is a stage where we open the RPG stage to a larger population, one where we offer choice in the beginning, but after that you must work with the cards dealt. A stage that might be inviting, and is original especially when you see what it out there. Most want to be a D&D, or a Bethesda clone. I prefer to create a new road if optionally available. It is merely an idea, is it a good idea? I believe it is, is it the best idea? That remains to be seen, but like Nintendo, copying others only gives limitations, the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS became reality by ignoring what others did.

Location, Location, Location
As we are taking. Look at the people in the game, the environment also needs to be considered, in light of the volcano power needed, I set my mind on Kabaena Island in Indonesia. The island would be a 1:1 map, giving us an island that is almost 50 by 40 kilometres, as such having two dozen locations will be leave us a lot of space to evolve the game. I set that size as it was the only flaw that Oblivion ever had, things were too close together, a flaw (as I personally see it) and so did Black Flag. So I chose a sage where there is enough space, yet I wanted to avoid well known places and there is no reason why Kabaena island would not suffice, especially in light of one of the storylines I am shaping in my mind. 

So this was the second door, next is the third door that leads to the Monks of the Sulphur Caves. See ya tomorrow (hopefully), Bethesda eat your heart out! I did this part in about an hour, so less than 4 hours got you all the setting I gave over two parts (well, actually three).

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October 12, 2020 · 20:43

When we reconsider

We reconsider at times, we all do. It is not merely a stage of changing of minds, it is a stage of giving a game another chance. In my case it is F1 2020. The last one I had was F1 2000, a game that I got with my PS2, I am not much of a racing fan, but I enjoyed the game to some extent. The ‘some extent’ is not to be mistaken with some critical view of the game. I do not have one, I like racing to some degree, I am not a lover of it. It’s a simple stage. Another game I had was Project Gotham 3, it came with my Xbox 360. That game I loved, it was fun, the F1 game is less fun, more of a simulator, till it is a nice challenge to have and at times we reconsider getting the game, so after 15 years I am willing to get another F1 game. Some go with statement like ‘cleansing the palette’, some go with ‘something else to devour’, some people (like me) never thought negative of the game, merely saw it as something that was not their cup of tea. Yet we all get to a stage that we want to try tea again. It is partially natural. For me, in part it was the stage where F1 2000 was actually a good looking game, I merely was decently lousy in racing. And the F1 game was a decent simulator. That in position to the fact that Project Gotham Racing III was more fun, slightly less of a simulator. Yet this is not about the F1 game, it is about FIFA. The BBC introduced me to ‘FIFA 21 review: ‘The virtual, beautiful game is passing off old as new’’, as well as the Verge giving us ‘FIFA 21 Is Limping Toward Retirement’. Now we should all accept that it is one hell of a test to prolong a franchise, even as soccer is one of the most favourite sports in the world, renewing it for 20+ years is still a massive task. Now, we can all go Monday morning quarterback on the makers, but in the end, I wonder if anyone could have done the job the way EA did. Now, I am not blowing their horn, they have a marketing department for that. In addition, I support their view that loot-boxes is not gambling. I have always supported that side, even as they clearly have made a few mistakes, the fact that they were made is open to debate. And even add the UK gives us “The Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport (“DCMS”) has launched a call for evidence on the impact of loot boxes in video games to help it determine whether they should be classified as gambling products” I still have a personal nagging that this is is a rigged setting. 

Even as we see things evolve, we see a larger stage the is not explored, which is partially an option for discussion. Yet the stage is still in the open. Like the F1 game I looked at, others look at FIFA in a similar way, I am not a FIFA fan, I am an NHL fan and the disturbing part is the here in Australia, the game still cannot get ordered, which is an optional EA play push and a Xbox Billing wish. 

I get the stage that this is, not many Australians have a preference to Hockey. I played it when I was younger. Hence, my interest (and my delusional dream that San Jose, Ottawa, Edmonton, or Calgary calls me that they are in desperate need of a goalie and my name came up), who has not had that thought? Which soccer player does not want to be able to bend it like Beckham? There is a weird interaction with sports games, especially the one we really prefer. We go for the annual setting, but there too EA dropped the ball more than once. It is their right to drop it, but it seemingly gets them in the situation they are in now.

And the stage of sport games is larger than we consider NHL21, FIFA21, Madden NFL 21, EA UFC 2020, Rugby20 2020, F1 2020, NBA 2K21, PGA 2K21, a stage that is a lot bigger than we realise and even if we are not a great fan of some games, EA and others had the option to change the stage and get a much greater following, but they set the game to an event of capture the dough. We can all be or become Monday morning quarterbacks, yet what will this resolve?

We are in what I call a clear stage to reconsider, the gamers and the makers. This is not about sport games, yet this is the larger stage of gaming and to set the what is new, and the why renews. A stage the gaming seems to overlook again and again, As I personally see it it comes with the marketing field who increasingly limits the scope ‘How to acquire new money and how to get as much of it as we can’, it is a natural setting for marketing and that makes sense. But if gaming leads, it is time to set a very different stage. Even as some as in the setting of ‘What if that does not work?’ Nintendo faced that with the WiiU, yet that led to the Nintendo Switch, a system that broke all their records and pushed the Microsoft console from 2nd to 3rd position and as Switch is in 2nd position, still growing its markets, still growing after 3.5 Years. 

It is time to reconsider the plays that are currently being made.

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October 5, 2020 · 00:51

The accusation and more

Yup, we all get accused, the of course includes me. In this case it is about ‘The mind stage’ which I wrote 22 hours ago. Apart from some of the deleted hatred stuff, there were some accusation that I was exaggerating about Ubisoft. As such here is the rundown. 

In the last 24 hours we see ‘Survey Finds That 20% Of Ubisoft Employees Do Not Feel Respected Or Safe In The Workplace’, and there are 3 more, then we get a few review based links with titles like ‘Hyper Scape has not met Ubisoft’s expectations’. This last headline I have no issues with, the article is clear and focussed on the game. That is part of life, the others is about perpetuating a stage well over a month old, and I get it, Ubisoft is newsworthy, but these articles are about getting clicks, as such the story is adjusted (like the survey) and there is no real stage on how long this continues. I get it, we seek what we are interested in, yet the imbalance that comes with this is also skewing the view of the people.

This matters, mainly because it comes with dangers. I have seen this before, but this time around I found FMI (Future Market Insights) divine us ‘Top 3 Cognitive Biases That Can Skew Market Research Outcomes’ (at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/blogs/details/skew-market-research-outcomes). The stage is set to 

  • Irrational Escalation
  • Social Desirability Bias
  • Knowledge Bias

You think that this is something that balances itself, but that is not the case, it sort of relates to the sight you cannot be set to unseen. This is easily set to another stage, almost a decade ago there was a video that was called 2 girls one cup, now I was fortunate to avoid it, but anyone who has ever seen it will forever be cursed with the ability to recall it. It is something the mind cannot set to unseen and it optionally haunts you forever, even if you are able to forget, the moment it is mentioned it comes back (in technicolor plus)

So when we get to irrational escalation, sometimes it is referred to as cognitive bias or preconceived notions, it will influence you, as such overly negative views will filter you to be negative from the start (a political, or adversarial tactic). The further away it is, the easier it is to remain negative about it, because daily events will not change or adjust it to a more balanced view. In this the mind loves any form of balancing. Some sales techniques are based on this, especially if the sales track is more than instant sales (like cars, houses and larger investments), the balanced mind accepts more options especially as it can reweighs the positive and the negative to its own setting. It is not always logical, but it works, some people have an entire stage set up for this approach and they are doing a lot better than most. 

In the stage of Social Desirability Bias, we actually continue from the previous setting, the balanced mind. It becomes about projection in the conversation, often the view is set to a relationship of something the person is ready to accept, in Ubisoft case it becomes “remember how much fun we had in Origin/Brotherhood, but now you are a Viking”. It is also a view of adjustment where the positive gets a lot more time than the negative. It is also the first page where data gets skewed, whether the data is collected or instantly available, the skewing is set to a plus point, the more positive one is not on how it is shown, but how the recipient of the information gets a skewed perspective reflective towards their own feelings on the subject. This is mostly seen in market research and how it is brought (the story maker) into a presentation that is given to share holders and stake holders of the setting, yet that same approach works on everyone that the story is trying to reach. Then there is knowledge bias, it is more generic but cannot be ignored. As such we see the station of gaming, we see the bias of positivity is used to inflate the positive and the negative part does the opposite, branding tends to be the power. An example is ‘As you see this, we see the resolution, yet the Nintendo Switch can not show us this, we could argue the the other cannot do this either, we have after all the mot powerful processor in our system’, in this we see a stage where we are given (slammed with) the term teraflop as such we now see the application of both knowledge bias as well as cognitive bias, yet what we forget is that the processor is merely one element in the setting, for people who know sound equipment, it reflects as ‘buy the most expensive amplifier, it solves everything’, yet if the speakers are ignored, the sound remains awful. The same for the processor, the environment around it will be equally important. And here is the kicker, most gamers merely look at the power of the processor, thinking the this solves it all, but like looking at any console, it is not the hardware, the games are the station of testing and the is where some come out better than others. This is a setting where Ubisoft failed, the idea was accepted and then it was given to marketing and the idea was drowned (or smothered) whilst not setting the stage correctly. I had stated a few times that testing was insufficient (or the issues could not be fixed) this ended up being seen in too many games. 

It is not just a Ubisoft issue, EA was equally stupid, relying on Knowledge Bias of the first three games and then dropping Mass Effect Andromeda on the same population, the effect is that a brand is now dealing with a massive effect of negativity (pun intended). They need to clean house and they need to do this fast (one more than the other), yet the stage is evolving and not for the good, the three markers have been used too long and too often, there is a larger bias running now, it is set to the lack of credibility and soon that will end up being the marker we see advertised and propagated. Here I need to make a jump. In 2015 Liang’an Huo (et al) gave us 

‘Optimal control of a rumour propagation model with latent period in emergency event’ this is important as we see here “Because network information has always suffered from a lack of credibility, people cannot believe it immediately but are able to believe news from their friends and relatives more easily. Especially, rumours mostly come from a network and then spread in real life mouth to mouth. Many rumours come from a network and are hidden in the depths of one’s heart for a period of time before he/she becomes a spreader or stifler in real life”, yet as I see it, it is not limited to information networks, there is a credible case that we can alter this into “because aided and given information has since the digital age suffered from a lack of credibility”, we see the stage where one ‘network’ one’s ‘connections’ are now a much larger stage of subjective perception (subjective bias as well as cognitive bias), and this is where the wheels come off the train and they then call it a hovercraft with needless rails. Yet when we consider “By means of the Lyapunov function and LaSalle’s invariant set theorem, we proved the global asymptotical stable results of the rumor-free equilibrium and the rumor-endemic equilibrium by using the Poincarè-Bendixson property” the paper now gives us “an optimal control problem is formulated, from the perspective of a manager in emergency events”, which applies to emergency events, yet in the mind of the buyer, a console is an emergency event (even if they ignore it), they are dealing with peer pressure and the fear of buying the bad product is optionally killing them inside. In the past we had VHS versus VCC (some might remember that) and marketing set us to the weaker product because that is where the need was, a fluctuated ‘peer pressure’ part and that is now reflective in the news we are given, they are adhering to share holders, stakeholders and advertisers, yet the people are weary. And that stage is getting flooded on a few stages where the marketeers are remaining in the ‘more is better’, yet the imbalance is now hitting people to a much larger degree and they are rejecting all information as their cognitive bias is set to minus 100. So now we see the application of market research in the field. If we consider business strategy as a solution to consoles and software, the stage changes when we consider “an organised effort to gather information about target markets and its customers; know as much as possible about them and identifying who they are”, yet the three bias flags and the flooding of less and less accepted information makes all that harder and the stories linked to them are adjusted, but are they correctly adjusted? The market knows less and less yet they proclaim that they do. As such we reflect on the Ubisoft stage, insider how accepting a vast amount of gamers are towards the marketed hype creation (a flaw Microsoft has as well), and as knowledge bias is shifted (through the teraflop stories) and cognitive bias is limited as people are less trustworthy of handed information as such they now more and more rely on their own ambassador of a product (the gamer next door), optionally the mechanic they know from school when they are considering a car, the stage changes and we see new reflective bias and the partial title of that paper ‘Optimal control of a rumor propagation model’ now comes into focus. It is seen in the conclusion where I state (an altered version) “Rumour propagation can have serious consequences; thus the study on how to take effective measures to control its spreading through filtering is of great practical significance”, I added ‘through filtering’, the setting is that we need to be able to filter through deletion of bias and controls spreading by stopping propagation of those affecting knowledge bias and cognitive bias. You think it is easy, but it is not, it will optionally become a new set of markers that will impact web surfing under 5G. Ubisoft brings it to the surface as it was the most pronounced there, but there are dozens of other sources in a similar predicament. It will stage a new form of marketing the needs to set the stage of weighted and unweighted data and the effects of boas filters, it will end up being a new form of filtering.

It is perhaps the only moment where I feel that the paper is missing something (it was not on them), It is seem when we see ‘General rumour propagation model with latent period and having constant immigration’, it is my personal view the there is a need to see ‘General rumour propagation model with adjusted weighting due to pushed trending external adjustments’

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September 30, 2020 · 14:56

Another furlong (to the race)

Yup, I stated and I keep (my word for the most), and as my mind wonders towards the new RPG, I need to set in motions the cogs, not the ones in my mind, but any game has cogs, the more it is set to a system, the more natural it comes across. As the player fathoms how things are set, they will also set in motion certain expectations towards continuances of the game.

So here we see the first cog, if you remember yesterday, I spoke about the fur guild, but it is merely one of three (in the initial design. It does not matter if you consider that part the green or the red cog, so the house of worship would be the other colour. When we look into the combinations we get a larger setting, a sort of interaction. The fur guild, the clothing guild, and the  smithing guild are three parts of the cog, and the cog could evolve further. What I call the house of worship would have evolved from the scribes, it gave us the coin-masters (banks and accountants), scribes (recorders and historians), evokers and casters. This makes sense when we recall the actual meaning of evocation (the act of bringing or recalling a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious mind), and as the stage grows, so do the cogs, starting with no more than 5 (three is better) gives you the setting towards a stage where the story can grow. Three is better because you can see how the cogs are maximised, before you add n-teeth to any cog. The interaction becomes important, as a person might become more than merely a trainee of furs. Someone who sets furs and has coin-master skills would be more effective in running a shop and making the more successful. And this stage also impact the coin-master on all guild trades. Scribes would be more effective in creating effective armour, because of historic learnings and evokers might add additional protection on any armour or weapon, now here is the kicker, by not merely adding them, but by limiting the amount of teeth of any cog you can inhabit, makes the game very replayable. It sets a stage where person can be close to very different in each gameplay, giving a larger joy to the game, in all this, when we make sure that the game also evolves different we get a larger bang for the buck and that is where Oblivion failed, you could do it all (which is not wrong), but when you get to do it all, you get through the game a lot faster and in all this the challenge dissipates. It was a flaw they largely avoided in Fallout 3: New Vegas, as the good person could not do all the missions, the bad person got to have a life in the ‘freed’ prison, it might seem small, but the larger implications could be seen over time.

So as we see the cog on two elements, it becomes a larger stage when the cogs interact with optional abilities down the road, for example the druid path cannot be gotten as you slay animals for furs, the arboreal might do so, as such we see that the hunter (bow) gets side, the druid another side, the smith might become the wielder of mauls, it is that difference that sets you apart. Even as the smith can wield the bow, the skills there will go slower than the maul would. In RPG exploring your options is half the fun (at least for me it is), I remember that in Neverwinter Nights (the original) the Scythe had benefits, we lost out on this view in several RPG games and it is time to consider a larger stage where you might get 100 hours of fun as one character, but an additional 80 hours as a second character. Th stage where missions are depending on the class you end up being and setting it to such a way that you are not aware of what you are missing out in the first play through, is what will amaze you the second time around. 

Oh and this came forth (from my devious brain) in less then 5 hours (all added up), so when we see the claims that it is so hard to create on, there is truth there, but it also depends on the visionaries they hire, that is the lesson I hope to instil on Microsoft as I offer these ideas to Sony.

By the way, when you consider the guild structures, and we add water options, agrarian options and we interact on three levels, how many times could you replay a game (apart from the locations) before the game bores you? Consider that some still play Skyrim which was released on 11.11.11, so when the nextgen consoles are released, the game will be 9 years old. That is a record worthy of slaying, so we need to come to the party with a massive (optionally spiked) bat.

Have fun considering what else the future of gaming has to offer.

 

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