It started the day before yesterday. I was looking at an image of a plague doctor, a back leather mask with it’s raven beak. I remember the scent of garlic in the beak, it was a clear image I was seeing. It caught on and my mind decided on the setting of the ‘plus’, not in the Game or New Game, but to set this plus on the NPC characters. OI would go as far as to ALL characters. As I see it, it has never been done before as I see it and there is a side that it could grow the game in its entirety.
The trigger would be a ‘mundane’ and personalized object. An image, a piece of clothing or a tool and when you grab it you will get the image that you cannot let go of the object, it isn’t evil, but it seemed important. That would be the setting of the ability. To get to that stage you get to sleep. Sleep is the activator. You normally sleep for whatever time you need in a game, now it becomes the start of another part of the game. There you wake up in the body of whatever item you had, if you have more than one item, you will be assigned a random person. As that person you will have mundane tasks. As a farmer you will tend the fields, as a butcher you will tend the meat and carve animals, as a stone mason you will form bricks and so on. The setting is that you get to up the game from that point forward. The farmers as the game is will produce more and better crops, resulting in higher health for you and the NPC. The stonemasons will result in better houses (over time) and better settings of the homestead. These are the mere tread stones of the game. The stage that a better smith will make stronger weapons, more impactful weapons comes with this and more. The fact that an RPG has never set the strength to the NPC’s as a game is oddly ‘discouraged’ as I see it. But better settings is the evolving base of any game and in RPG games it is not ‘heralded’ as a ‘wanting’ prospect. But that is where RPG games need to go, they need to go into new terrain, added terrain and this is one way to get there. We all herald the creation of Horizons and Forbidden West is the current horizon for the RPG game to follow, but there will be more. I have no idea how Guerrilla does it, but they will. They have created two games in perpetuity that are RPG games of awesome quality and even as I didn’t like the end of it, I get that it was done, but what drove me was the fact that the first thing after the finale, I went on finding more. That is the making of a near perfect game. The near perfection of this RPG game gives clear desire to upgrade RPG games, make a more perfect game by setting the stage to new frontiers. It doesn’t matter whether it is Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, Horizons, Mass Effect or Baldurs Gate. They all need an upgrade, although I am the first to admit that the niche that Mass Effect created is near perfect, it merely needs a better story and backdrop. But in all this, they never resorted to upgrade the NPC’s and that is the new frontier. I already added stories in the past to upgrade the game, but to set the stage to upgrade the NPC themselves does not seem to be considered. Why?
It was a natural escalation of any RPG game and this possibility was clearly possible from the stage of the PS4, now we have the PS5pro and the PS6 will be coming at some point, so to get to this point, we need to upgrade games as they stand. When we ignore the perfection of Guerrilla games, we see that the others need serious work. And why not? Bethesda created Skyrim 14 years ago, and for the most it still does the job. A game doing the job after 14 years is almost unheard of. Consider that in 1987 Leisure suit Larry was released by Sierra on line. And it was excellent gaming, but it faded within 5 years, newer versions were created and the storyline faded. It was the way things were, but were is yesterday what comes next is tomorrow and even as Guerrilla and Avalanche Software might rightfully feel safe at present, but there is space for more and whilst there is nothing wrong with these two games, the RPG gamer wants variety and someone will pick this up. Whilst Bioware is seemingly going on the same track, when its storyline disappoints, their stage will be set in an instance, not one they would hope for. We can assume that it is ‘all’ going according to plan, or we can push the boundary of gaming and as such several evolutionary steps were suggested (by me) in 2024/2025. Now I am getting to the stage of advancing NPC adherence. There are plenty of tracks, but the the one they will use will remain a secret until they are ready to give us the Alpha version of their game. I honestly wonder if Bethesda will make the cut. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know where they are going and I have the greatest admiration of Skyrim, but where they are going no-one knows (unless you are part of the Bethesda higher echelon).
So all the others, the Indie developers, the newly wannabe’s? Where will they go? Follow in the tracks where the other games are, or will they seek out the new boundaries and create a game that creates a setting of long term playing and in this economy having a game that keeps you happy for over a year is the way to go. I reckon that soon we will see the merchandise cloth us in the setting we desire, I reckon that 2027 will be all about that and as the money becomes more and more stringent of out money, we will need an escape and gaming is a justified escape. That is the setting I see and I also see that gaming will give release to the people. Nintendo does it the way it does (they always do) but the setting of Sony (PC and streaming decks too) will need a game that they can enjoy not for a hundred hours, but for a thousand hours. Development firms don’t want to do this, but they have to. Consider that the price of oil now is $101–$102 per barrel, it was $55 a month ago and it will go down again I reckon, but in the meantime all costs are going up and they will for some time, so take that into consideration when the costs are rising, jobs are fading and costs of living are exceeding what people find comfortable. They need an escape and gaming is one direction that is open to all. Not everyone needs that escape, but the amount of people that need that escape is rising and it is rising fearfully fast. And as we look at the options, we see a mere 100 hour escape, now consider an RPG game that holds a 1000 hour trip. This is the direction I see and there is a much larger population that is ‘demanding’ the escape route of gaming. I reckon that Microsoft had this in mind all along and like the setting set by Don Mattrick with his disastrous statement “Fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360” he called the play too soon and also in the wrong way, now as Microsoft is a fading setting, the others need to be cautious and consider long term playing. Because the setting for 3 100 hours games might seem nice, the setting of that one 1000 game will hold a much larger population and that is the stuff of legends. I reckon that Bethesda is still in the running, but others can joint that setting too and I am kinda hoping they will. The RPG range needs enlargement and that is the drive we need to face and we might want to try other sides on RPG that will be offered and perhaps you will enjoy a change of taste (without forsaking the other games). Yet taking all the elements I wrote about in stride and giving it a face in these RPG games, we will see a new generations of gamers and a new generation of play.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 