Tag Archives: Horizon Zero Dawn

January 7, 2026 · 22:58

The accused speaks

Well, I have had an interesting day (so far), I have been accused of being anti-American and a whole range of other things (some of it on lacking evidence), so here goes.

First of all, I am not anti-American, I am heavily pro-Canadian, so there. Then there is the ‘alarmist’ accusation. That is fair, but it comes with certain evidence. In the first I gave you the source the Texas Standard where Matt Smith, lead energy analyst at Kpler gives us “So if we just consider U.S. production and Latin American production in Venezuela specifically, U.S. shale is light sweet crude. It is very high quality. Venezuelan crude is low quality, heavy sour crude. And U.S. gulf coast refineries have been geared towards running this Venezuelan heavy sour crude, Mexican heavy sour crude as well.” As such the few who can process this crude is Chevron for one (they were originally in Venezuela) and then we get Fortune telling us ‘President Trump stands ready to send U.S. Big Oil into Venezuela en masse, but the messy reality of rebuilding a ruined industry takes many years’ with the added “President Donald Trump says American Big Oil “want to go in so badly” into Venezuela and spend billions of dollars, but the reality is U.S. oil producers are hesitant, and it will take many years and many tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Venezuela’s decimated oil sector after the U.S forcibly removed and arrested leader Nicolás Maduro during a string of attacks on Jan. 3.” But as I see it, President Trump only has 1108 days left, so there will not be enough time, apart from Chevron optionally making a massive windfall (they were there first and they would know how to process the crude oil Venezuela has), so how is this an American setting? Because President Trump told us so. 

Then we get about America being broke. There is way too much evidence all around us. The issue is that you have to connect the dots yourself because the media does nothing that hurts their golden eggs. Now some claim I am making the wrong assumptions. That is fair, because I too can fail. And if you are relying on your whatever AI you use, you will fail, because I tend to work in multidimensional viewpoints and there is (as far as I know no AI that can do that), the programmer didn’t program it and as such it fails. One person even accused me of being a “a passionate, alarmist synthesis of 2026 events. It resonates in fringe discussions but lacks rigorous sourcing or nuance.” Really? That might be the case, but the media is actually no help at all and the setting of debt is clearly shown in numerous sources and so is the $1.2 trillion dollar interest bill. So what happens when 24% of the annual budget is taken all whilst America was unable to keep a budget for over 10 years? And now you have two make due with 24% less? That was before President Trump made trade-wars with Canada (aka Tariffs) and the rest of the world. As such Tourism was highly impacted and we are not getting the real numbers, especially when we see the claims of up around $6-$12 billion, all whilst some give us estimates of the total potential shortfall as high as $29 billion. And that was before some other elements are considered I came to up to $80 billion in the widest setting (like air B&B, temporary jobs for students and several other factors) where I saw as California and Florida being the hardest hit and in addition the Canadian winter geese who are at present shunning Florida. All elements that will be added burdens to the lack of revenue for America. And with these facts I came to the speculative conclusion that the Democrats are in on this. Because as I see it, the political field is all about blaming the other side, but now, the democrats remain silent, especially where Greenland is concerned. Why is that?

As it stands Marjorie Taylor Green has been more outspoken against President Trump than Hakeem Jeffries has been, How does that make sense? And I am willing to put that not on them but on the media and what they are not telling us. So what else is going on? Oh yes, I was ‘accused’ to “openness to partnering with China against U.S. “greed,” framing it as a “warlike Commonwealth” response.” What I actually said was “America needs to learn what a warlike Commonwealth can bring to the table. I still think that a partnership with China is preferred, but I get that this is politically a hammer to heavy to wield.” I countered the language of a bully with the response to a bully. Something that an AI is unlikely to decipher. And as Canada is optionally attacked as the 51st State, I find it acceptable to color the Commonwealth in an aggressive response. As I see it, the last time Australians were blood red eyed aggressive was in Gallipoli in 1915, so we (Australians) are due for another exercise, and an exercise to protect Canada is definitely a worthy one. 

So it is fair to see me emotional, but the emotions that president Trump gave is all are massively aggravating. So I feel justified in my emotions. 

So in other news there are the Horizon games (yes I am changing subject). The third Horizon game is seemingly planned for 2027-2028. And might be a launch title for the PS6. Which is claimed, I have no idea when that thing comes to market. But I was thinking as it would be fair to see the PS6 with a 4KHD drive, there might be a case to launch the game with all three games upgraded for PS6. Disc one would be Zero Dawn/Frozen Wilds  and Forbidden West/Burning Shores and disc 2 would hold the third game. As Zero Dawn was released in 2017 it would be a 10th anniversary release. A game that almost every Sony gamer would want and to play them all (likely after the third game) would be one hell of a journey. I reckon that many non Sony gamers will buy the PS6 merely for that option. Just an idea I was having. I am currently replaying Forbidden West and I am still in awe of the entire journey this game offers. As I see it, it might be the best game in the history of gaming and that is saying something. 

And come to think of it, the world of Zero Dawn and Forbidden West might be preferable to the one we face her at present. Just some food for thought.

Have a great day everyone.

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December 6, 2024 · 12:09

Early Christmas for Guerrilla Software

Yes, that happens. The moment that we hand someone an early Christmas. The fact that Guerrilla software is not Microsoft related and the fact that they inspired this idea made me want to give me the idea to them. In this it all started on November 9th when I saw something that woke up a spark of innovation. It got me to write ‘The Easy Lesson’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/09/the-easy-lesson/) and when I read the statement “Reports suggest that development on Vision Pro began in late 2015, and from that time until WWDC, Apple filed for over twenty thousand worldwide patents and spent about $130 billion on R&D.” I tasted a massive hint of negativity there. I forgot who wrote it, but the idea that innovation was slapped down because it costed a little (130 time a little) threw me off. I thought, what can I do to make it a stronger success. I get it that reporter was all about being cozy with the place where ‘free’ money is (aka Facebook) and I decided to counter that and here is the result, all freely available for Guerrilla software as well as Apple who could use a rather large win at this time. So here it is and have at it.

The idea
The idea is not a game but a visual exploration based on the game. You see, no matter how excellent the game is (and it is really good) true emersion is seen when you are in the middle of it all and as such Apple Vision Pro makes it’s introduction into the world. The idea is to use the setting of the game to show the vision holder on how immersive the Apple Vision Pro is. In this narration you are a traveller from somewhere else. You start in Mother’s Heart. It gives you a lesson in how the narrative works. You are an ‘inventor’ of the camera and as such you can set the stage. You can walk freely in Mother’s Heart see the people and interact with them. The game gives you tasks and that gets you credit coins. If you complete all tasks you get a red marker from an elder. The red marker lets you travel to another location. It also gives you a shelter. You get it randomly, but the shelter is in your name. If you do not have a shelter in that place you get a bunk in an inn or place (depends on where you are). So lets have a look at the locations.

  • Mother’s Heart
  • Freeheap
  • Sunstone rock
  • Meridian
  • Sunfall
  • Mainspring (option)
  • Ban-Ur (option)
  • Song’s edge
  • Longnotch
  • GreyCatch

Mothers Heart has one new location (still random), all others have 2-3 locations

When you are in your location you get tasks (of a sort). You are given a ride (mostly striders in first part) and the narration is set to your proving your camera. You are given an escort a son or daughter of Aloy. AshTone (Daughter) or BeeSneeze (Son). They will escort you so that the ride will ‘stay’ in the right place. Each location has rides out of town to locations where the machines are. They will have an old location to visit, machines to see and more of that. The important part is that this is not a game. You see the machines, but they are all docile. You will be able to photograph yourself with the machine in the background and you haven’t seen anything until you see yourself with a Thunderjaw or a Storm-bird in the background. It will be to get the good shots with machines or distinctive locations in the background. In this we could also enable to locations with a holograph in view and the views they had in the game. There will be the need to add a few hundred tasks in the game so that any location will have dozens of tasks but per ‘play day’ you only get 10. When 10 are completed, you get a red marker and in the first location (Mother’s heart) you get an assigned location, via a raffle bag, which will have stones. Each stoner is engraved and  signifies a location. At that point you will be able to travel to another location and start anew.

Each location will have a specific task, like only Mothers heart will have the option to see Devil’s Thirst. And each location should have a tall neck assignment. The idea is that the Tall neck and other large machines will show you these large machines through the Vision Pro making them seem a lot more impressive than on the PlayStation. All machines are docile and will not harm or attack you. There is however a setting with corrupted machines making the machines attack them on sight, the chance of that is a mere 1%, making it a rare setting. All these options make for playability and a long term entertainment setting. I wonder how long it will take for the Game map to be transferred to Vision Pro. And at this point I have enough setting to get Horizon Zero Dawn transferred including Frozen wastes. And in this the Forbidden West as well. I reckon that if this could be completed there would still be time until the third game is released. 

The towns should be near exact (wherever possible). Several ruins and old cities and each locations will have Chargers, Striders and Broadheads that can be ridden. As I see it, from the Mothers Heart (location one) Striders are used. From location 2 onwards Striders take you back and Chargers and Broadheads take you forward to another location. And after location 2, you can see the glyph on the machine to see where you will go. The locations you have already seen will be readable, the scribbled glyphs are indication that it is a new location and your focus hasn’t learned it yet. After the second location you will have 3-5 rides to chose from. And every 20 tasks after the first 10 give you an additional place to live and show off your created artwork. I have more on this, but that is for the eyes of Guerrilla only.

What I tried to envision is an original narrative with the locations all Horizon players loved and now a lot more ‘realistically’ seen through the Apple Vision Pro. As for the ‘creator’ aka ‘het Grobbekuiken’ Mathijs de Jonge. Hier is het idee, als je denkt dat het wat is, zie het als een ‘early Christmas present’, Veel plezier en een prettig uiteinde. 

Have a great day, it’s Friyay!

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December 2, 2024 · 23:35

The version of a word

There is a word, it connects to the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czeg2p3wjy1o) where we are treated to ‘Why so many games are failing right now – and why others are breakout hits’ the word in this is ‘game’ the definition is “an activity that one engages in for amusement or fun”. The problem is that most ‘game designers’ have no clue on games. The bulk of these ‘designers’ are setting the bar ridiculously low. Their version is to create some version that reflects a game and lace it with advertisements. You see 100K ‘customers’ implies that the designer gets 100K times a few cents. So that implies 100,000 times $0.04-$0.07 gives us $4000-$7000 per advertisement and take that 3 times then whomever downloads the game has handed their achievement towards the $7000. The world (Google, Apple et al) likes this, because they get their larger share of the cash, but that doesn’t make a game, it doesn’t even resemble a game. And mobiles and tablets are overgrown with that trash. In the years that I have seen these junk providers I have perhaps seen a dozen games at best and they are still around, the rest is easily forgotten. So the article gives us “There’s also evidence people have been spending less money on new games, choosing to stick with long-running online games like Fortnite or yearly franchises including Call of Duty and EA Sports FC. Despite that, more games than ever are getting released.” As such we see Fortnite, Call of Duty and EA sports. I like merely one of them, but these are all games. We don’t all like the same thing and as such the designers of an actual game get into a much larger predicament. 

I have met the greats Richard Garriott, Sid Meier and Peter Molyneux (and a few more). They have a different mindset and that shows. They created games that are close to timeless. Even now I could get my thrills from Ultimate 3-8, Alpha Centauri, Civilisation, Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet. These games let us enjoy actual gaming and they would still entice gamers today. That makes for a real game designer. There are more designers of course. As I personally see it game designer made Horizon Zero Dawn a game of near perfection. There are of course more designers. Yet as I see it, we are given “That’s not only affected premium releases – smaller studios, whose games tend to be more affordable, have also struggled to find an audience.

It’s often difficult to pinpoint why, but quality isn’t a guarantee of success.” In response I give you Hello Games, a smaller studio that game is all “No Man’s Sky”, they gave it to us in 2016 and is till debated, played and loved 8 years later. I do agree that quality is no guarantee of success. There have been these games going back to 1985. We had games like The Sentinel, Paradroid, Eye of the Beholder, Tower of Babel. The list goes on. Some become success, some do not. There is another cog in that wheel. In those days the press illuminated games that THEY liked, the game population was small. Now everyone calls themselves a gamer and that is where the plot thickens. It becomes about the advertisements and the fountain of replication. For example there are dozens of match 3 games and they all advertise. And as they all advertise to the same people the advertisers see their money bags fill up. That is not gaming. So now we get to another setting. We see it “As well as battling for player’s attention, new games are increasingly battling for their time. According to analytics firm Newzoo, annual series such as Call of Duty and online titles such as Fortnite took up 92% of gaming time, with just 8% remaining for new releases.” I have doubts about this data. I for one have never touched Fortnite and I know a few more people who did that. There will be an offset of course, like the platform in use. Tablet, Mobile, Consoles and PC/MAC. The final part I needed to look at is ““Factors like a strong IP, strong marketing campaign, community fostering, and timing can help, but the fact is that there is luck involved,” he says. Right place, right time is a big part of gaming’s surprise successes. “But gameplay matters, and innovation, so great games often stand out and find their market.”” I can agree in part with this. IP is essential, and in that setting the Horizon games stand out. A new IP is essential and Guerrilla has the goods. Still the IP was not enough. The first game gives us a storyline that is quite literally out of this world. And these two are essential to a success. Graphics snd sounds count, but without the first two graphics and sound don’t stand a chance. We can debate IP, but without it dozens will copy what you have or they will copy it as well. That sets your pool to a much smaller population. And as statistics go, consider that “14,000 games have been published on the platform this year, with 2024 already overtaking 2023’s tally” do you know what it takes to produce 14,000 games? It comes down to 39 games each day. Take the timeline and you get something unsustainable. A setting that Advertisers love, but do the gamers? And when you consider the number of games. It seems to me that the bulk of designers are set to appease advertisement funds. The red currency that dwindles on the gullibility of gamers and the BBC seemingly overlooked that small fact. They know statistics? They know the top-line of involved data? So why didn’t they see this? I know because I have been involved with games and gaming since 1985 and I have seen several iterations of gaming whilst taking the advertiser out of the loop. It is time for a better dimension of gaming and the BBC story merely confirms what I have known for several years. And in all this the BBC has been unaware of what they missed from the very beginning.

Have a lovely day.

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November 16, 2024 · 03:27

One step left for a new world

That hit me a moment ago. You see, 6 days ago I wrote ‘The easy lesson’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/09/the-easy-lesson/) it was an idea that could aid Apple in propelling their Apple Vision Pro, the idea hit me a week ago and now I see a few more angles to this. If Epic Games (makers of Unreal Engine 5.4) get a translation system online. It could propel the Apple Vision Pro even further. Areas like Tourism, Theme parks and even larger attractions could be visited, or seen in different ways.

I saw one side, then another and another. Apple seems to overlooked this, but the setting in high end tourism is easily made and the more are set to multiple sides it could boost Apple in several ways. As I see it, should Epic Games make the jump to make an engine that translates Unreal Engine 5 to a system that could be fed into the visionOS operating system. Apple would enjoy the upsizing, but in equal measure Apple and the game developers could get an entire new population to their translated games. We all know (or have heard of) “spatial computing experiences”, but how to set that? I saw the options about 4 years ago, not as the Vision Pro, but in other ways. And now I see that the Apple solution could work there too. And once this is going I reckon that Meta with its goggles would soon follow. The hard part is to make it work and not a simple figment of an idea that is nice or one title. This is why Apple needs to talk to Epic Games. The unreal engine would be central for conversion. We merely think of the Unreal Engine as a gaming system. But imagine that The game Assassins Creed 2, or Origin gets upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.4 and after that we get the translator to get the spatial system fed into visionOS. Consider that the spatial system let us walk through Florence, Venice, Rome and even Egypt (AC Origin) or Bagdad (AC Mirage), from there we could use it to teach us Latin, Greek, Italian, Baghdadi Arabic, Egyptian. It allows the goggles (to avoid confusion with glassware) to show us how it was then. It could also in a more frontal view of the Horizon games. To see the Thunderjaw next to you (a separate discussion). Once these systems are created the avalanche will build up and here Ubisoft has a distinct advantage through titles. So how long until the Vatican wakes up? And from there tourism gets a larger slice of this approach. And lets be fair, wouldn’t you walk through the streets of the cities we saw in the Assassins Creed games? See the machines in the Horizon games, or learn the languages of days gone by? The learning ability that is part of something bigger. A massively wild idea and perhaps contemplated by some. However, I cannot find anything in this direction at present. All options for at least two systems and if I had my way (I seldom do) there is even another side to the options I gave to the Saudi government. A way to propel the Saudi way of life to a much larger population. And now I see that the Apple Vision Pro device could do this even more so. 

It is not a step forward, it is a step to the left (or right) and it enhances the overall setting. It doesn’t replace it. A simple idea that others didn’t have (or rejected). I wonder how many considered this to be a futuristic path to learning languages? 

It has been Saturday for 3.5 hours now. Vancouver has a decent amount of Friday to do before it is here too. Have a great day.

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October 25, 2024 · 15:20

When future and past are similar

I made a jump today, it was into the past. Somewhere between the release of Battlehorn Castle and November 2011, I had an idea. A set of quests to ‘automate’ defences and infrastructure in magic. It use actual NPC’s but beyond that, nearly everything went. It went nowhere (as it was not my IP). Yet the idea stayed in my mind. And today I ‘remembered’ the idea I had. 

It can be applied in numerous ways. It might be a DLC for Guerrilla (the Horizon IP), it could be added to any number of non-Microsoft IP’s and it could be added as a simple structure to anything. You see, the IP is sound and versatile as is any good given DLC.

So how did this idea come to pass?

As I revered Elder scrolls (for a long time), the setting of adding to Castle Battlehorn became overwhelming. I found myself wondering how any castle could be without guards. So I set out and created a magical oven, with at the heart the device it replicated. There was a blunt oven (maces) a sharp oven (swords), a range oven (bows) and a guardian oven (Halberts). And every oven needs to be create a few times. Then there was the issue of what materials as used. Iron, steel, or more advanced materials. You needed a forge to create the bars of material and the wood blocks to create the handles. As such, nothing is really made out of nothing (initially) but the setting applies. As you create a more advanced weapon more time per weapon is needed and the machine places it in the basket. A simple weapon (iron, or wood) is about an hour with a maximum of 6 per oven. Getting the weapon in Silver, or gold take more two or four hours. I didn’t want rely on Bethesda weapons to not get them on my back. And as such we now had a near automated weapon system. You needed to be able to forge the master weapon like a iron sword, steel sword or silver sword and the rest was made as long as you had the metals. In the upgraded version I upgraded the machine to require less materials whilst the manufacturing remains the same after that the next upgrade required less time, as such you added to the machines and had a abled guarding setting to your castle.

Then came the kitchens and there the stoves could set out food in bulk for the troops. And with every pen you had, you would add to the specials that the troops would like. A chicken coup, a cow pen, a pig pen and as such the foods would enable much stronger and more resilient troops. The option occurred to create a vegetable patch and as the troops grew, so would the need for more food.

I played with the idea on a few levels and in the end Skyrim was released and I buried the idea in the back of my mind. For some reason the thought got back to me on my morning walk. But in this setting I made a crossover between the bank job in Thief and Horizon Zero dawn (as this is released in 5 days), You see e have the foundries in Horizon for one reason, but what happens if there is a DLC that gets Aloy into a secret location where all is automated. There isn’t a kitchen, but all else remains. Sentries, guardians, servants and the place was all forgotten. Aloy would have to rely on stealth to get things done and that changes the game. She would have to find materials to create hidden paths. And that could be a more sinister task at hand. In the end there needs to be  great reward (like advanced stealth armour) and more powerful weapons. Optionally a more rewarding boon so that the DLC could be in any Horizon game.

I like to think that Guerrilla might like the idea of that DLC to hand to their respectful fans. There are a few other thoughts that I am considering, but out of all of the optional issues is the fact that I created a dozen ideas, all whilst Ubisoft is dropping stock (or better stated their stock dropped). And whilst we see “AJ Investments to go private after Star Wars Outlaws” I merely created over half a dozen IP ideas. Sucks to be Ubisoft. In other news Microsoft stock dropped 7%. They blame their cloud revenue. I say that mediocrity never leads to high praise. I reckon that Oracle largely protected a landslide sell off on Microsoft cloud issues. The creative people rule in almost all IT sides and Gaming has been largely responsible for better IT design from the 90’s onwards. BI people need to realise this and not play the blame game. If they need to blame someone they need only look into a mirror. 

And that sets the creative people apart. Not everything is a sure thing. Nintendo showed us that with the WiiU, it also led to the Switch which blew Microsoft out of the water in half the time that Microsoft needed to make minimum revenue (or more clearer stated, it took Microsoft from 2013 to 2017 to create the revenue which was surpassed by Switch within 18 months) That is the true sign of innovation. I believe that Microsoft is trusting its own spin, all whilst the creative will shoot any spin to smithereens in half that time and there is more to come. As Guerrilla will release the third game somewhere in 2026-2028, whatever Ubisoft or Microsoft had will be reduced to nothing in no time flat. Horizon was the latest true innovative IP in gaming and everything else fades next to it. This also holds true to whatever BioWare will bring in the shape of Mass Effect 5. Even there I had some idea (somewhere in my blog). The problem isn’t merely the bugs we faced in Andromeda (mostly PC) the design was shoddy. There were real moments of brilliance, but I feel that the wrong people tried to make a name for themselves and that went wrong. I set the stand for 5 to include 4 (or Andromeda) to give the fans something to bite into. And that would have created a much larger wave (my personal imagination). Now as we are given that it will not (speculated) come before 2028, people like Guerrilla will get a free reign with optionally gaming fans giving up on their Xbox (yay me). In any event, the set stage as I gave it in 2022 is now more robust as Microsoft has given us too little and Ubisoft has seemingly cancelled more than it released. Now the streamers will have their moment in creating the setting of a lifetime with the optional Tencent or the established Amazon Luna to create a new niche of millions of fans. I foresaw a first phase release of 50,000,000 consoles. With Microsoft only having sold 58 million there is a real state of transfer of gaming fans on a global stage. I envisioned a setting where that streaming solution could grace 150-200 million homes. The Microsoft BI group might want to say that this isn’t realistic, but as I didn’t fight the excellence of Sony or Nintendo. The streaming solution could be next to it, not replacing this. The very first mistake Microsoft made. And now as I have been correct a lot more than I was wrong, I feel certain that the ‘larger’ software houses seems to be ‘placed’ with the Microsoft mindset and we are now shown that it was the wrong mindset from the very beginning. Should Guerrilla also grace the streaming niche I reckon that some players might be going the way of investors of 1929 (read: jumping out of a window, not to be mistaken for a Russian suicide streak).

How wrong am I?

The interesting and valid question. The problem is that the media is not to be trusted. It is filled with stakeholders who need Microsoft to do well and they will downplay the drop of Microsoft. But the truth of the matter is that Microsoft and Ubisoft are seemingly run by Business Intelligence. It makes for a solid core, but excellence (in gaming) is never found that way. It is the creative mind that does that and not to forget the story writers as well. These elements are less seen in the games of today and again Guerrilla is the exception that establishes the rule. As such games of today, software houses of today are grasping back to yesterdays games to make up for that failing. There is also the need to replay the old games (a drive that is not to be underestimated). Yet as far as I can see the horizon, I believe to be correct and should Tencent decide to buy my IP, I will be able to prove it.

Have a wonderful Friday (Vancouver gets to see that in around 3 hours).

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May 23, 2022 · 19:19

Increasingly Pretentious

Yes, that happens, and that is how some see others. The first group does that out of envy, they do not understand what they are confronted with and as such they ridicule it. Their belief is that their biggest asset is between their legs and the fact that their wives/partners disagree is lost on them, hence the adultery rates. The second group is different. They know they are looking at something new, but they cannot concur the percentages, or the revenue from these innovations. That group is more interesting. They can add to my ideas, they can add to my considerations, their objections are food for the soul and food for the evolution of IP. To ignore that group is beyond stupid, it is worse than pretentious, it is dangerous. The second group might not be right, but they come with their own wagons of experience and as such they should be listened to. Listening does not mean adhering. Listening does not mean (but could mean) changing the IP. A person that sets its IP blindly into concrete will loose a lot more than the IP. 

And that is where I find myself, three bundles of IP, one bundle holding media IP and I added to that last night, or better stated. I am still adding to this. There are a few items I discussed two days ago, but last night a new part started to be added to this. The problem is that I am all sixes and sevens (the other numbers are to be added later) whether this is a new game, or a new movie. It could go either way and there the fault comes into play, or so I think. You see they used to have very different stages and were not interchangeable and that is about to take another turn. The question becomes do you d one, the other or both? And there lies the setting. This is perhaps the first game that cannot be set to consoles. The solution becomes too large. It is also a setting where game IP and movie IP becomes close to indistinguishable. No matter how we want to twist and turn, how much some want to maximise money be keeping them apart. The streaming solutions are done with that greed driven stage, and there is every chance that this puts the Netflix solution a little ahead of the others, in this Amazon can fight back and keep its niche and overlap with Netflix, but it is anyones guess how the Google Stadia will take it. Not technologically, they are on par, but with games and movies the other two will have an advantage, no doubt about that. So what is the new IP?

Consider the stage of a game, almost any game. Now consider that this game has a cutscene. Now consider that the cutscene is not a cutscene, but a playable part of the game and as we go through the game, we can alter from ‘game play’ to cut scenes at the mere push of a button, anywhere in the game. Not only does it change the game, it changes the nature of gaming and weirdly enough, the one with the largest advantage here is Ubisoft. Yes, I have hit them more often than anyone else, but they also have had their moments and in this, the way they did their AC and Watchdogs games, they might just have the playing field here. This is an evolution that is waiting to happen. The nature of gaming evolves or we go under replaying the past again and again. Weirdly enough it were the Dutch that started this thought. You see the two Horizon games have something in common. They are utterly unique, the world they created had never been done before. With the additional thoughts I had on the Citadel as well as Mass Effect 4 and 5 game more and more of this IP to the forefront of my mind. Yet I am placing it here. Why? Because an innovation like this cannot be maintained by one person, no ones greed should allow for this and making it public domain in this blog opens the doors for all kinds of players to recede the waters of the old and create the waves of tomorrow. I would love that Sony and their PS5 would be on front of it all, but in the end this will most likely be a new frontier, one played by the streamers in the leading roles. A first setting where computers and consoles can no longer  keep up. We are reaching the age of the streamers and again there are three players (four if you consider Microsoft). This is not something that happens in a day, this will take the technology and IP of all players. And it is here where Ubisoft has the field advantage. 

So is this a set of Increasingly Pretentious idea’s? Is this innovation for a new day after tomorrow? Time will tell, but there is no holding back, I am not ridding this for a pretty penny, there is too much at stake, I merely hope that Netflix takes up the baton and take this future to heart and become one of the top three consoles (I am happy to see Microsoft in an eternal 4th position).

The largest systems will come at a larger stage and this step is essential for a few other sides that evolve from this. Evolution is essential, especially in gaming. In the 90’s technology evolved because gaming kept pushing. We need to return to those days and push the next two decades ahead, not when some business graduate tells you it is more effective that way. It reduces you to the iteration stage and the bosses of tomorrow are the ones pushing innovation. Should you doubt me, consider Horizon Zero Dawn with over 20,000,000 copies sold, a feat that its successor has not equalled because there are not enough PS5’s available, but they will get there, slamming pretty much every other game for the numbers. That is the impact of innovation in gaming and streaming will have its own innovation and that will require a national 5G, but more important we need to start now, if they start when the national 5G is out, it will be too late for those beginning then. Those who did prepare will become the rulers of gaming stream land. 

That is how I see it and there is every chance that I am wrong, yet the stage of innovation needs to be adhered to and respected. The dangerous setting of gaming that it is up to business people (those less likely to comprehend games) is folly to say the least. So will this lead to a new commodore 64, or another colecovision (1982)? I can make whatever claim I like, but that will not mean it is correct and I feel being correct is more important than anyones ego, even my own.

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January 23, 2021 · 22:50

Destined to entertain

We all want to be an entertainer, most of us (not all) have that feeling inside of us, the need to be entertaining, our social structures have also pushed it, but in the stage where it is a sort of PC (politically correct) version of that what entertains us, it is in that setting where some of us become actors, some become writers, some become directors and some become game creators. There are a few more options, but the foundation of books, sound and vision have been upon us for centuries, last century vision (movies, TV) was added and about 35 years ago games were added. Yet the setting of games remains new and they too are going through the motions. A stage where they are relying on re-using any wheel instead of inventing a new one. We can agree that there is a stage of sequels that some accept (some do not) but that stage comes with labels and warnings. The God of War has pulled it off 4 times and they did it well, Ubisoft with its Assassins Creed did not, yet from my point of view, they did do a decent job and pulled it off with WatchDogs. Yet these makers have an issue with the story, they forget that the story is the driving factor. It is easiest seen When you compare God of War IV or Mass Effect to the Assassins Creed stories (Unity, Syndicate, Odyssey) you get a first glimmer why the AC range was failing, they had a great thing, they bungled it, then they seemingly fixed it with AC Origins (which was amazing) and then they bungled it. Even now, AC Valhalla is according to some too shallow, to much chasing after something whilst forgetting the Assassins path. I cannot vouch for AC Valhalla as I stayed away from it, but the critique makes sense, and that is before we consider the fixes to bug and glitches. This is why new games like Horizon Zero Dawn are cherished (and it is a really nice game too), or the mere fact that Skyrim is still being played on new consoles 9 years after its release. The story is everything, Ubisoft forgot about that, Bethesda seemingly did not. But this is not about Ubisoft bashing (even though it is entertaining), Bioware is in a similar stage, They messed up ME4, and they now rely on ME1,2,3 to fatten their coffers so that they get a chance at ME5. A setting that is dubious, but if they really fattened the pot and make ME5 a game that breaks the mould, they might pull it off. It is funny, it took me less than 2 hours to think through a sequel all whilst ME4 collapsed. Yet I digress, you see, to become the entertainer you need to be a creator, all whilst silly people at some game companies relied on Business Intelligence, but entertainment cannot be set in that way, you merely get a setting where you try to include everything and in that setting you never satisfy anyone. And as such creation falters (AC Odyssey is a prime example). And a we now see that there are more games coming, that some indie developers are changing the game (Hades), we see that gaming is not dead, but the story mattered and so does game play. 

So as gaming becomes a rather large stage (due to Covid issues) we get to see a new stage where some game developers are losing options and optionally their firm and some shine. And in all this it is not about the highest graphics, That is seen with Animal Crossings: New Horizons. A game that surpasses 20 million copies, which implies that 1 in 2 Switch owners has that game, it is almost unheard of. It shows that gameplay is just a important as the storyline and the fact that this game is a long term game, not something you finish in 100 hours has close to never been done before, and Microsoft (Sony too) are a little bit in the dark, that is why Nintendo is such a competitor. I said it 2-3 years ago and it is coming true, gaming is more than relying on a Business Intelligence analyst, it is a setting where a painter and a storyteller unite to give the traveller a story that this person has never experienced before, and that is what Skyrim and Mass Effect (1-3) delivered on, others did too, so why are some game makers blind to that part?
It took me a day at the most to give the Elder Scrolls, WatchDogs, Mass Effect a sequel on a new storyline, a new creation, so why can’t they do this? OK, there is still an Elder Scrolls coming, but I  made the first design 6 years ago, Mass Effect 4-5, 3 years ago and Watchdogs 4 last year. Now consider that I am a nobody and these high and mighty game designers can’t come up with the goods on several fronts, so what are they missing. How come Nintendo is on the ball, Microsoft forgot what a ball looks like and and Sony is seemingly slipping a fraction, and all this has close to nothing to do with new hardware, games are paintings, the console is a palette and the palette becomes bigger or change shape but the creator adjusts view, adjusts grip and continues.

So in this, and as we see what is coming, what makes them destined to entertain? 

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January 23, 2020 · 11:38

The thought counts

I am still in some level of debate on this, Alex Hearn published an article last August (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/aug/20/from-cyberpunk-2077-to-the-outer-worlds-are-role-playing-games-getting-too-predictable) and I happened to re-read the story this morning. The main hitter was ‘are role-playing games getting too predictable?‘ I believe it is a valid train of thought to have, yet in this situation is it the game, or the gamer that bears the guilt? As we see the first paragraph we are confronted with: “Not only is it directed by Fallout creators Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, it shares a lot of DNA with Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas – a spin-off with a reputation as the best in the series“, you see there are two trains of thought, the first (not the most embraced one) is that the game was designed by a ‘one pump chump‘, you see a one trick pony is too harsh here. The second is the one I embrace, it is set on two principles.

  1. Relation
  2. Online cheat guides

The relation factor is how you relate to it all, It is easy in the Elder Scrolls, or Fallout, these are plain drives concepts and for the longest time, we go along with it. Even as we are offered options, Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 still try to guide you, yet the reality is that you can go wherever you want ignoring the first stage altogether. The Elder Scrolls 4 (Oblivion) gave you a clear option after you get out of the sewers, The Elder scrolls 5 (Skyrim) did so a lot less, but left the door open to explore. In that beginning we get the option to grow and either you start staging the story, or the game leaves you a little in the dark. In a lot of cases you are a little in the dark, this is seen in Witcher 3, you can go in any direction, yet if you avoid all the missions in the first stage, your character tends to be too feeble to get around, and you die a lot. Until you grow skills you tend to be on your own, now we can see that the first village is an introduction (like the sewers of Oblivion), and yes after that you can explore and decide the way you want and that makes Witcher 3 an amazing game. In that same setting we see Horizon Zero Dawn, it is storydriven, but you can explore your heart out, merely consider that too far away, without proper upgrades your life does not tend to make it for a long time. Still, the origin story that Guerilla Games released is as awesome as any RPG that was EVER released.

It is in that stage we need to see a game like the Outer Worlds, there is a larger stage of introduction and it tends to make the gamer fumble a bit, that is the foundation of RPG, you have to feel your way into any RPG game. Yes, New Vegas was amazing and the stage is still among the very best, but there we get it, when we start exploring, we need to realise that the enemies a little further ahead can make short work of you really fast if the beginning is absent of exploring. Still, New Vegas did one thing better than all others, you have a good and a bad you and some cases can only begotten when you decide on the bad you. It gets to be even better as the third option (Caesar’s Legion) comes into play. It was an RPG founded on replayability, making it one of the very best.

The second stage is another matter, those who rely on online hint/cheat guides. They all go the same direction and it is clear that there are thousands of them (all claiming to have done the path without help), as such the foundation of ‘are role-playing games getting too predictable?‘ becomes slightly less reliable. And for the most, the story is partially that simple and partially not so simple. That part is revealed in Horizon Zero Dawn, the story is so overwhelming that it pushes you from stage to stage, it really was one hell of a trip. The cut movies over the entire game add up to almost 6 hours, almost 6 hours of story and information and some parts are not that small, the story truly is everything and it pushes the player in a direction and not on a path, Guerilla games really outdid most designers. In opposition we see Fallout 3, which had moment, not a story that pushes you and it pushes you more towards places. The article then gives you the Cyberpunk 2077 line with “But the fundamental skeleton the games are built on is so constricting that, given an hour to show off everything they could be, both developers independently converged on a near-identical script“, I personally am not convinced that this is so, in the first there was a quote “open world feature to their upcoming RPG. Players are given the freedom to explore the fictional Night City, take on the side quests that they want to, and be a part of the world that CD Projekt Red has developed“, in the second there is the option to be a Netrunner (hacker), techie (a badgetteer) or Solo (Assassin and direct action). The class you select will influence to some degree the way you play, or the way you play will push you into a class. It changes the way you overcome missions and locations and this changes the game (not the main story). As such did the game become too predictable? 

Well that is still out in the open, yet predictability is often depending on lack of choice, CD Projekt Red (Witcher series, Cyberpunk 2077) has never had that, and overall neither did Bethesda (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout). Yet it is the way WE play that gives the impression of lack of choice. In the Verge we are given “Obsidian Entertainment’s new role-playing shooter The Outer Worlds, I met a man miserably playing a corporate mascot, his head semi-permanently enclosed in a large, ghoulish moon mask. I spoke to him for several turns, hoping there was something I could do to help. But if there was a way to improve his life, he never suggested it, and I never found it“, as such I never met the man (or played the game) but if we consider that we can help, ignore or optionally kill him, is that a lack of the game, or a lack of the player? You see that is the foundation of RPG, the gamer decides and that is where I oppose Alex Hearn’s statement (not his point of view) ‘are role-playing games getting too predictable?‘

I believe that the statement is a little out in the open. The makers of New Vegas had an amazing setting (especially after Fallout 3), from one mission you decide whether you go to ‘The House Always Wins 1‘, ‘Render Unto Caesar‘, or ‘Wild Card: Change in Management‘, Obsidian created a phase where we are confronted with a level of brilliance and definitely an opposition of predictability. But Alex is not entirely incorrect, we might agree that there is a good and a bad choice (each with their options) but not much more. the Fable series tend to have them too, as did Mass Effect, but the last one is less RPG set. Yet how many genuinely found the 4th option in Mass Effect 3? I see all the people nod ‘yes’ but in the end, they learned of that options like me, in a YouTube video. Only a few actually found them by their own choices, it tends  to oppose ‘too predictable’. And then we get to a beautiful line in The Verge: “by the end of the game, you’re still one of the most important people in the world“, it shows the largest flaw in RPG, the truth of the matter is that you never mattered, that truth is often pushed out of the RPG, you are merely flock people, you either suck up to the needy as a newcomer, or you decide on what someone larger and more powerful needed and you are the fixer, you are almost never yourself, the person you want to become, the RPG left that out of the equation as it is close to impossible to program too and it does not make an RPG ‘Too Predictable’, it merely makes an RPG ‘less unpredictable’ those two are not the same, not by a long shot.

However, the words of Alex Hearn are still in me and we see that view emphasized in Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2019/10/23/the-outer-worlds-review-roundup-heres-what-critics-are-saying-about-obsidians-new-space-rpg/#2350c4927d34) where we see: “The Outer Worlds, we were promised the kind of RPG we know and love. And that’s exactly what we’re getting, a familiar experience in a new setting” it is the stage of ‘the kind of RPG we know and love‘, and ‘a familiar experience‘, which basically gives Alex the power of his words, an RPG might be many things, but when it is a new title, those two are the foundation of predictability, the question becomes, if that is what the gamer wants and searches, is it the game maker adjusting its view on commerce that is wrong? Is predictability a dangerous part? I believe it is, but is it any less an RPG? That part was not in debate, yet from my side, when I play a different RPG, I need a different stance. Put Elder Scrolls against Witcher and you get that, in either direction, put Elder Scrolls next to fallout and we see it less. Even as the story and the graphics change, we are not the in the stage of countering predictability, we are in a stage of gaming in a different hall, yet doing the same dance and that is where RPG’s tend to fall short (a little) and that is why I loved Horizon Zero Dawn. Even in my own design, as I drew up Elder Scrolls: Restoration and Watchdogs: Refuge, I continued on the franchise as they already had it, new elements, yes, but the setting remained in part the same, so as such am I enabling repetition and as such predictability? I believe that if we move away from “by the end of the game, you’re still one of the most important people in the world“, we can start that the premise, and predictability (to a certain extent) goes out the window. 

He also gives us “every now and again, a game comes along which shows that innovation can happen without putting people off and revives a genre in the process“, yes that is the part I can agree and align with, there were parts in Skyrim that went beyond Oblivion and id just that. Yet what is also a consideration is that both opened the field by allowing everything to be done and it took the replayability away to some extent, as such in Elder Scrolls: Restoration I went back (allegedly) to Morrowind (which I never played) and left a barricade in place, as such not all classes could be done at the same time, a student of one could not join another path. In addition, the end of the mission often would result in the loss of location and a transfer to other places. One cannot be in University all the time, you are replaced as you are merely a student in one. that path lowers predictability to certain levels, even more so as I set the stage where choices were abundant, but limits choices later on. Without going towards a Red wings match in a Blackhawks Jersey (which tends to get you killed). Yet these settings give a much larger joy towards replayability.

RPGs forgot about the stage of limitation. As we are set in a game, we want to do it all, we ourselves become predictable, not the game (although the game did allow for it).

In Watch Dogs: Refuge I decided to set gender and language as barriers, the stage of pushing for time to drink and eat (in Watch Dogs one and two) I merely did weeks of actions on one fruit drink, so how is it I survived? An RPG should take that into account and make food and sleep an essential. You could try to get through a week on red bull without sleep, but you end to look like the zombies in university (in the 3 weeks before final exam). We took options away as debilitating factors, yet when you consider that Okinawa is a cuisine haven (as is most of Japan) making that a factor as overlooked. I reintroduced the option with an optional achievement or two, considering that one should never go for the stressful places loaded on Cheesecake, you get the idea that a lack of food and sleep can be a debilitating factor, we merely programmed that part away, but is an RPG not about the stage of a whole day, not merely the part you crave for (battle and mayhem)?

So why Japan? Well most gamers of Watch Dogs are non-Japanese, so pushing you into a place where you cannot read or comprehend anything sets you in a much larger stage, when we  get everything in english, we see what we need to, yet what happens when language becomes an actual hurdle? We forget that, did we not? for those who are still in the dark, try watching Passion of the Christ without subtitles. When Aramaic and Latin are your only companions, you either get smart (real fast) or you tend to forfeit your life. Italians (Romans) were really not to be too discriminating to people who did not speak their language (they were all considered slaves).

To set the stage where we counter the RPG in ways we forgot, I still wonder if that is because of the hand holding that the RPG maker is willing to make, or the side where we are just too shabby a player of RPG. I am not certain where it goes, but there are plenty of indicators that both are factors, as such we might consider that RPG games are too predictable, yet I remain in a stage where the makers became too enabling. 

It is merely a point of view and whether it is gaming limitation or predictability, it is a setting that are two faces of the same coin. I am still unwilling to say that Alex Hearn right, but he makes a fair point, even though he seemingly forgets that part of the predictability is the gamer him or her self. 

 

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September 11, 2019 · 11:45

A gaming shift

I am watching on how Google and Apple are starting their stream service. I don’t expect to sign up (no way will I get to Apple), but there is also another side to it all and I am not sure whether we realise this.

I might be outspoken not into Apple Arcade, yet this is largely because I am an android man. I still have my very first iPad, the anonymous one, without camera’s and such and it has done its job for over 8 years. Yes, I have games on it and foremost, the one game I still play is Blockheads, even after all these years. Like Minecraft it is fun escapism playing whilst my mind works out puzzles in the background. On the iPad 1 I also still play Sudoku and a few other games, on Android my life limits me to a few games, Gems of War being the most outspoken one.

The use of problem would be the wrong word, there is no problem, and the limitation that these systems show is the stage of real gaming. The bulk of people might be happy with Candy King, or some equivalent, the bulk might like Pokémon Go, yet is it gaming or connected mini games?

The question is more important than you might think; the question becomes what is real gaming to you? For a lot it is FIFA, NFL, NBA and NHL games and that is fine, for me it will be RPG’s. I consider Minecraft to be a game that I really love playing, yet true gaming is more and we forget the elements that we loved when we go for the short term. The Nintendo Switch makes games truly mobile, yet until I played some of the streaming games to confirm this, they might be the only one that still embraces real gaming on the go. You see, it only hits you when you see (or see again) the cut scene movies of games like God of War 4 and Horizon Zero Dawn to realise the massive journey you took to get to the end. You do not comprehend the journey until you have been on it, and Guerrilla games made more than an effort, it created an origin story so titanic in size and so overwhelming in completeness that you wonder who could ever equal it. The Horizon Zero Dawn (HZD) movie journey is well over 5 hours and that is merely the cut scene and stories that are part of a hundred hours of gameplay. I reckon it can be done sooner, but you might lose out on seeing just how amazing that world was. Santa Monica Studio did the same with God of War 4, it was a story well done and when you get to the end and see the twist [no spoiler given], and you end of merely sitting back in amazement giving yourself a loud ‘What the fuck?‘ Excelling games do that, Bethesda games do not give us that to the degree the previous two did and they still make excellent games. There is a balance in place in high level gaming, there is a balance, yet it seems to be like a seesaw, what one side gets the other loses. We might have all kinds of issues with like of Ubisoft, yet their graphics and stories have always been really good. Yet it is the other side where they lost largely on gameplay. The earlier mentioned two had both right, both gameplay and story, making the seesaw a much larger version than the one Ubisoft, EA and Rockstar Games have.

Don’t think this is a negative thing; we do not always want RPG games. Even now, lacking storyline, I would not be able to resist playing MediEvil again as it comes to PS4, that game was the reason I bought the PSP when it launched in 2005, I loved the game on the first PlayStation and thoroughly enjoyed it again on the PSP. It is the rewarding feeling of gaming you get making you want to play it again, if that did not exist, we would not have 8 versions of Mario Kart, yet they are not the only one offering that game. I still miss the challenge and fun that Wacky Races on the Dreamcast gave us 19 years ago. In equal measure from that same year there was Fur Fighters, also on Dreamcast (the PS2 version was a disaster). So there is more than a storyline in play, the satisfaction of gaming goes in several directions. It is the challenge of gaming that has a few packages, for RPG story is the overwhelming one, yet without challenging gameplay the game falls flat. In shooters and platform games it is more than the challenge, the shooters offer it most often through multiplayer. For Honor is an excellent example, it is below par on single player due to the lack and often repetitive mission gameplay in single player mode, yet the multiplayer mode is an amazing almost unparalleled experience.

This is where we stand in gaming and I fear that both google and Apple will fall short of that. Even as Apple Arcade comes out in 8 days, it seems that the list of 100 games will remain hidden for those same 8 days, yet there is also the challenge, I do believe we will find games we love, but when you consider the Australian price of $8 a month, would you pay that every month just to keep one game you care for? The games are said not to be sold individually and the 100 games might sound nice, yet what happens in month 3? There lies the issue for both Apple and Google, to entice a population not to play games, but to become gamers and I wonder if they can pull it off beyond year 1, that applies to both Apple and Google. Part of it was exactly what I predicted a long time ago two years ago and Beneath a Steel Sky (a 1994 original) was good gaming and with the reduced resources needed, the game would work well on any mobile or system. My issue is not with newly released golden oldies, it is the ability to embrace those playing games and turn them into actual gamers, they are not the same goal and both Google and Apple will have to rely on the growing number of actual gamers to do better than merely survive. Even as we see that Ghost Recon: Breakpoint comes to Google Stadia, so there are larger games coming to cloud based streaming and here we get the initial issue. So far I personally have had at least one hiccup a day on Netflix, even as it was merely a second it was not an issue, yet in gaming it is a much larger issue, it becomes almost literally the death of you. How will you react then? I believe that congestion is going to be a much larger issue until 5G is truly deployed to the largest extent. One could argue that overall at present the Microsoft Game Pass is too good value for the price and at that point is becomes the break on the acceleration for streaming games.
So what is the issue?

I believe that we face a larger lag soon enough, I believe that there is a danger that the increase of high end RPG gaming will take a hit, as people embrace Google and Apple, the development of games will be towards gaming that includes both new systems; and there is where I see the negative impact. Yes, the two earlier mentioned game makers will still make their games, but a whole range of other developers will try to find a solution that includes all systems and I feel that there is a danger to the development of excelling RPG games; it will decrease and that makes me sad.

Still, the streaming world does have its own challenges and that is where we see the benefit, whenever a challenge is met and surpassed games benefit and that is the trade-off that works on our behalf, there us a whole range of games that were originals and most are now forgotten, yet streaming games could bring them back. 7 cities of gold, Sentinel returns, Fur Fighters, Wacky Races, Shadow man, System Shock 2, Millennium 2.2 and this list goes on for a while. Games that will never be forgotten and could also lead to new game innovation. Even later games like MGS4, guns of the patriot showed innovation at the very end of the PS3 life cycle. People like Richard Garriott who innovated RPG gaming via the Ultima series. People like Peter Molyneux who started with Magic Carpet and Dungeon keeper a new age of gaming, they inspired some of the game makers that followed; the past is full of game makers who inspired others. Yet, this is not the end; these games could also inspire the next phase of gaming. I believe that through limitations we see the creation of new options. If there is one lesson learned from the CBM64, then that would be the one. We embrace gaming because we get to a place we did not think would be possible, Ubisoft showed that when they created Assassins Creed 2, we embraced the first one to some degree because of originality, the second one because we never believed it possible. I believe that this is the part we forgot about when Xbox360 went to Xbox One and PS3 when to PS4. Even now as PS5 and Xbox Two are coming, we still see merely a larger version of what was. It is games like Cyberpunk 2077 that will show what would be possible, in the same way that MGS4, guns of the patriot did on PS3.

With Streaming we will see new hurdles and we will meet innovative game designers that will get past that boundary showing us something we never saw coming, that is the stage the true gamer embraces, it goes beyond we thought we could and that is also why we look with eager eyes to Santa Monica Studio who surpassed itself three times over with every God of War release, the same we hope to see with Guerrilla games and a new Eloy story (the ending game ample consideration there), yet in the end we do not merely want to see more, we want to see more and something entirely new. In that regard CD Projekt RED delivered beyond amazing in Witcher 3 and is as far as we can tell, surpassing excellence again with Cyberpunk 2077. These few makers all delivered 90%+ games, games for true gamers.

And true gamers like junkies need their 90%+ games to stay alive (to coin a phrase), it does not make other games unwanted, it does not make a game like the crew bad (well it does make it below par), yet it does make us wonder how far that game could have been taken, or perhaps what would be possible when it was upgraded to the max, or perhaps what happens when a 97% game like GTA5 is no longer merely is based in the fictional state of San Andreas, but has the ability to cover the entire USA, how many thousands if not millions more gamers would it attract? Streaming might make that possible, and as such streaming will be here to stay when it becomes a serious piece of work, yet in that when we see the wrongful (not incorrect) quote in the Guardian “Arcade, which was demonstrated during the unveiling of Apple’s latest iPhones on Tuesday, is an attempt to turn the mobile gaming industry on its head and add an extensive new revenue stream to the company’s books” (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/10/apple-arcade-launch-netflix-for-games-will-cost-499-a-month) there is a danger that a lot of people forget what streaming could offer, the question becomes to what degree are either Apple and Google aware that this playground for true gamers is equally open for them to dig into?

In a lot of places we see: “Bethesda Softworks is providing a gaggle of titles for Stadia’s launch later this year: “DOOM 2016,” “Rage 2,” “The Elder Scrolls Online,” and “Wolfenstein: Youngblood.”” which is merely a new place to play games already released, yet the corner of what was not done has not been turned yet and I hope that we will see more than merely more of the same, streaming could potentially open a market and give a game that PC’s and consoles cannot offer. Yet until those are actually released, we will have to wait to see just how rewarding that platform actually is, we will know the initial in a week, but it is the second wave that decides on just how successful these platforms will be, it is where the consoles cannot go, that is when streaming services will prove their worth and their place in the gaming community.

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April 10, 2019 · 10:40

The next gamer plus

We can speculate in all direction, but I believe that the next big thing is Transference. It will be on several fields and when it comes to gaming, it is perhaps the clearest field of all. Many players want to take their game with them, many players want a larger exposure to the games that they care about. Especially in RPG gaming.

Bethesda

Bethesda might be the clearest example of all, they decided to do something nice and gave away a free game called Fallout Shelter. Now consider that you could export a maximum of three vaults to Fallout 4, as soon as a minimum degree is reached, you could do a one-time export of that vault. This now becomes a much more revealing part of a game you just spend 30-70 hours of gaming on, but in addition to that, depending on the level of the rooms, that vault is exported to a 3D version where you can walk around. Now, we can understand that the connection might require a purchasable DLC (which is fine by me, but consider that you get three new vaults (three new personal spaces) in the commonwealth, who would not want that?

The upcoming Elder Scrolls: Blades, might offer a similar path when the new Elder Scrolls 6 is released. All that time, all the effort and you get to transport a set of weapons and armour to the big game, how awesome would that be?

It would optionally add to the gaming experience and fun. For example (going back to Fallout shelter), level 1 rooms will be 25-50% operational, level 2 51%-75% and level 3 rooms 76%-90%, so you might have to clean out that vault, make repairs and set the stage to make it operational. That could be an easy 10 hours per vault more.

The concept of transference is not new, yet the interactions of mobile and console gaming will grow, 5G is making it happen, dedication to a franchise makes it essential and the fact that any good mobile game would optionally being in a DLC (or via season pass) gives more and more value to the franchise we enjoy.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft dropped the ball initially around the Unity release, yet what bummed me out was that the mobile game looked spiffy and appealing, it looked like a real winner. The fact that this fell through in a disastrous way was quite the shame, even as the previous Facebook attempt with Brotherhood was actually really good.

There are games that could have added so much. Titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, The Division would have added more depth and more joy to the game. Now, this is not a solution or option to all games, yet for the most, the RPG games could benefit greatly. This push is more and more to likely to happen, especially as Google and Apple are entering the gaming arena. Also unknown games like Watchdogs 3 would prosper in bigger ways. There will of course be the interactive person who will complain that it could have been added as a mini game. This is of course a fair call and there is nothing stopping the makers to add these games on both sides, yet we should consider the smoothness of adding transference to games, especially when the games are online games.

It can go in several directions, consider a game like System shock that is being relaunched within the next year. What could you get when the mobile part is about hacking into consoles on the mobile giving you optional rewards that you can pick up when you log back into the game? Another example could be World War Z, a game that has no mobile game, but a mobile tag with the option that passing people could blindly exchange weapons, more so, the receiver will always get a +1 version of the game transmitted to them, that too is the power of an app; weapons and armour of equal levels are exchanged and they get a +1 version of the given item, it will push interaction close to tenfold overnight.

All options to keep the gamers interested, most of it free and in some cases a real dealmaker to upgrade to that DLC, or merely buy it on the spot. The more I think on it, the more sense it makes. It will also be interesting for Nintendo to make that jump. They had done so to some extent, yet the swapping of your Pokémon collection (from any Pokemon game) via the mobile? And the versatility of that approach just keeps on growing, so as we consider all the cursing we have seen over the last weeks regarding Anthem, was there no one at EA that gave the entire stage a much larger setting giving players all kind of options on the go.

The nice part on all this is that it does not merely give reason for interaction with others. The option will also give more gamers the consideration to buy that game, which is a win-win for maker and gamer. I believe that we will see a growth of this in 2020-2021, even as most are now already considering this to some extent (or optionally considering not doing that) there is the most likely stage that the makers want to offer 5G gaming as fast as possible and adding new options will draw gamers in.

It is becoming a numbers game and those with social media and online links will merely offer more for the same amount which is always a good idea to get the success rate of a game up in the beginning, on launch day traction for a title is everything and I predict that not unlike Fable 2 with ‘Pub Games‘ on early release is a path that will find a renewed interest for all the people gaming involved, especially as it could help create visibility and awareness for the game maker, as well as a much larger exposure. So I do hope that anticipated games like Fable 4 will consider renewing that path.

It is also a consideration on the amount that Mass Effect Andromeda missed, when we consider the options that the Mass Effect 3 data pad gave us, moreover, the additional opportunities (with no more than 4G) could have given the makers of that game a lot more to their gamers, I had forgotten about the app initially and of the 72 missed opportunities (OK, that was an exaggeration, I only saw 67 opportunities), we see a sad part on what was, yet we can rejoice on what the next several years bring, especially as 5G and tag technology will raise the bar for everyone, not merely in gaming.

The next gaming generation could be one where we get the partial unification of single players in a multiplayer environment, the one part that every single player has been looking forward to for well over 6 years at present.

So when you see these ‘hot air’ articles on the fourth industrial revolution, consider what RFID, beacons, sensors, and drones could also facilitate for. Pokémon go opened the door, yet in the next 2 years we could see a whole range of new applications of technology that could spell more interactions and additional awareness on a global scale. For close to 95% of the people, their most important device is their mobile, for consoles and games to properly connect to that device adding options for gameplay and awareness makes perfect sense.

 

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