Tag Archives: Skyrim

September 7, 2023 · 10:03

Media Markets

That was what stuck in my mind when I saw the Guardian view of Starfield. The writer Keza MacDonald crying like a little girl, giving us view and “Along with several others, including the greatly respected games publications Eurogamer and Edge, we were left waiting until the game’s early access release last Friday to play it.” Yes, there is seemingly some cherry picking happening, but that has been the case for years. What does matter is that Starfield is not that great release. Some ratings are as low as 70%, that is a massive miss for the budget and alignment of stars. Skyrim with one exception was a 90% plus all across the board. There is a reason that this game has been heralded since 11.11.11, not because 11 is the crazy number (yo figure that part out). Skyrim is no matter how critics see it mind boggling. It still rocks the current generation hardware based on a previous generation console specifications. So when the Guardian gives us “It is very much like No Man’s Skyrim, as much about menus and mining and navigation as it is about finding interesting quest-lines and exploring planets on a whim”. For me this is funny as both Skyrim and No Man’s Sky are ‘earth’ shattering products, they are both unique in their own way and it seems that Starfield is neither. The reviewer gives us “Starfield has had a mixed but broadly positive reception so far”. The article reads like a cry song on how the Guardian is not one of the chosen few, but does it give a good view of Starfield? Nope, it does not. No we are given “Negotiating all this is part of the job for games journalists” all whilst the title ‘Bethesda chose not to give us early access to Starfield – and it’s readers who lose out’. My view? Nope, the readers lost out as you whined like a little bitch. So when we are given “I am reliably informed that this is one of those games that might get its hooks into you after the first 10 or even 20 hours” with the added “though, the forthcoming fantasy Elder Scrolls 6 might be a more worthwhile investment of time” and that is a review? Go cry me a river. Oh, and before I forget the new Eder Scrolls 6 is (for now) not expected before 2026. Does that mean you will whine another 2 years? So the Guardian shirked their duty (as I see it), when the floodgates go away they could have given us the goods. What is good, what is less and what sucks. No, we get a ‘I am not a chosen reviewer cry song’. 

Early access is marketing and I get that and Bethesda, Microsoft and pretty much EVERY game developers will hand over their cherries to the best source of gaming news, which is in this case anyone with the right following that will sing praise of their game. A YouTube reviewer called Parris gave the game four out of five, which translates to an 80% game. He gave us the goods why it is great, on things that are not great and things that need improvement. His review (for a lack of better term) was stellar. That is the review that makes me buy a game and that matters to Bethesda, that was their goal and he delivered on that with  (what I believe to be ) a honest opinion. I see and in this case saw way too many reviews. Plenty of haters there too (not sure why). You see an RPG is rather specific. It is a niche game which grew from small to huge in less than 10 years and Bethesda has been the major driving force in that growth. I believe that they opened the floodgates with Oblivion and the flood never stopped since 2006. Bethesda pulled that off and the added water damage that Fallout 3 brought just kept on going. So we all might have set our views to high after Skyrim, a true crowning achievement for any developer. 

So what went wrong?
I believe that the media is part of that problem, the digital dollars made for a new kind of writing and games are not part of that equation. The media now relies on self proclaimed hypes and that does not sit well with the current developers. Portkey games is a mere example (Hogwarts Legacy) and now Bethesda. So will the media adjust, or will we see another cry story when Guerrilla Software selects their reviewers for the third Horizons game? There is no indication, but that might come before Elder Scrolls 6 (speculative wishful thinking). In the meantime there is a lot more coming and it is not on some developers. You see, I have been trying to keep tabs on the new Tencent Technology handheld console which they are doing with Logitech and how much media have we seen? Not that much. Is it an anti-China thing? That new console will bite into the marketshare of Amazon and Microsoft for sure. It will support Microsoft gaming and as such it will grow fast, but the media seemingly ignored it to the largest extent. I keep tabs on it as it could facilitate my IP and if Tencent wants the 50 million new subscriptions, it can. Amazon seemingly doesn’t want it, Google dropped it Stadia and now Tencent has the option of getting in excess of 50 million new ‘gamers’, surpassing Microsoft within a year, just like Nintendo did with its Switch. Should this come to pass, Tencent technologies will come close to Sony, closer than Microsoft has EVER been. This all matters because the media is keeping gamers in the dark. So when we reconsider the headline part ‘and it’s readers who lose out’ it is not that, it is the media who changed the way they wrote, to adhere to digital dollars, to adhere to emotional flames and that is what most readers are a little sick of. It drive me to create an IP that pushes Facebook and others out of the way. Gamers want to game, but the console has other options too and with streaming that now comes to the surface and a player like Google should have been on the front lines there, not dumping their stadia, but that might merely be me. 

So there will be an upside for Bethesda/Microsoft. Even as their console is no longer the bees knees (it never was), Tencent Technologies could fill a gap that Bethesda might assist filling. Yet I do believe that they need to have a very hearty conversation with reviewers like Parris Lilly (gamertech radio) to upgrade Starfield to ‘Starfield More’. It could propel Starfield from a average 70%+ game to the game that it needed to be (85%-90%) and that would be a massive increase and gamers will applaud that setting. What is funny is that streaming allows for this and for Bethesda to push that envelope to a new setting might be a way to go (merely one of a few) but the crying Keza MacDonald (at the Guardian) didn’t think that through. No, crying and waiting for a 2026 release was the answer that the reader was given. Within an hour I offered a new destiny, a new horizon and a new hope (yes, a Star Wars reference) which in this case applies in more than one way. 

And for me? Well if it comes to the Tencent handheld I might actually play Starfield as well, it might even be a reason to get that handheld (My Switch just died). And that is the gamer field, the gamer field is forever in motion. We might hate Microsoft, we might hate Sony, but we are always looking on that next fix that gaming provides for. All gamers seek it and we are minds forever voyaging (yes, a gaming pun). 

So what next?
Well to be honest, I had closed the Starfield book, mainly because I am not playing it. Yet the Guardian opened that door again with that pathetic article and blood needed to be drawn (I sharpened my Yanagiba knife for the occasion). As stated in earlier articles, I believe in fair play and being honest with shedding blood and tears. Simply put, I will not shed a tear when shedding Microsoft blood, they did it to themselves, but the media doesn’t get that consideration. The media market changed and even as it is not always visible, it tends to be overly visible in gaming. Gamers are a funny lot (I am one of them), pushing their buttons comes at a price, which Don Mattrick learned the hard way on May 21st 2013, now a little over 10 years ago and Microsoft is still bleeding from that event. More-so if Tencent surpasses them by December 2024. Still it is not merely Microsoft, it is the media spin that is pushing gamers into new fields and even as Starfield was to be that force, it is not to late for Starfield, they still have options. I believe that Bethesda has a hidden diamond there. Am I right? I am not certain, but a game that took this much time, energy and resources cannot die on an average setting, Bethesda has created too many great titles for a new IP just to sizzle and that is my view on the matter.

Enjoy the day.

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July 4, 2023 · 02:00

Small victory

This article is a little weird (little being the operative word). You see, I got here via several paths, all walked at nearly the same time. The first started with me going through Skyrim for the 4th time, now on PS5. I bought the anniversary expansion as it was on special and a game that pleased me for over 11 years deserves a small infusion of funds. I am still in the same setting and this time around I found all 7 black books. This is a first in the 4 play-throughs. I got them all on my own and the feeling of pleasure to see a new level was almost overwhelming (I did say almost). This got me to think of a few things running parts in my IP. You see the IP I was creating for non-Microsoft systems had a few issues, but the idea of having a long term game is enticing. As such I created a set of events that makes a replay more entertaining and more addictive for the RPG player. Yet that was as far as I got and my mind was replaying old issues in programming. Like the setting of [SET mission to Class=1 and Gender=2 or Evolution=4] this gives us that not all see a mission and the mission is limited to gender and class in the first or the evolution is set to 4 (it makes sense a lot later and not today). This gives us that some missions are optionally never played. These are side missions. So as we replay a game we see missions that we never saw in the first play-through. Why? Well we can give it all, or give the player a nice ride a few times over and I believe in long term gaming. I have no time for people who play games with the solution page to their left (or right for that matter). These are simple track gamers and there are enough games for these people. 

Sidestep
Now I make a sidestep. This is important for the whole story. This sidestep is what the Australian Financial Review gives subscribers on China. As such we will jump over it. Yet one quote there is “China’s hostility to the west has come at a very substantial economic price” this statement is flawed and faulty. It is the west with its slamming Huawei that is at the center of a lot. All the accusations and the US and EU have NEVER given clear evidence of their accusations. I get the UK stance that no infrastructure should be in foreign hands. That makes sense, but handing it over to the US is no different. We get more on the Russian setting towards Ukraine and I cannot completely disagree, Russia is a losing stage and that will have larger repercussions down the track. I reckon that BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will exploit the setting as long as they can and then optionally dump Russia, they might not have a choice and with Saudi Arabia and the UAE bolstering their group the stage of ‘at a very substantial price’ is shown to be faulty. The collaboration at present between Saudi Arabia and China will bring oil and revenue to China. Saudi Arabia is in the process of ordering military hardware from China which will cost the West billions upon billions and it all goes to China. This is not new, this has been two years in the making and I gave warning of this as early as 2019 I believe. The article has a lot more claims, but they are empty. When I see “are privately more sympathetic to the US and its allies” reads like a joke and a bad one at that. The stage is that the population (read: consumers) is on the side of China via India. The wealth from the Middle East is pouring into China and is giving construction jobs to China for building all over Saudi Arabia with a several of them adding up to almost a trillion dollars. So where is the substantial economic price? At the next stage China has 5G Telecommunications via Huawei all over the Middle East and it is about to border Europe directly. Leaving the Mediterranean open to Saudi telecom hands soon enough. 

As such when I see “So far this year such investments in China are running a little more than $1 billion whereas two years ago it was nearly $50 billion” I tend to howl with laughter. You see, projects like The Line, Neom Bay, Oxagon, Trojena, and Sindalah represent well over $500 billion and China is about to get large chunks of that. Not sure how much, because I am not an insider, but I am certain that it will surpass $150 billion. Then there is the multi billion dollar military contracts and the refinery at the Chinese border, which is worth billions and more in infrastructure. So what economic loss? China is running on all engines and they are seemingly killing it. A world without the US and without the EU and these two players are making it happen. This is the price of arrogance and I have been clear over the last 5 years that this was about to happen, but the ego centrical politicians all stated that they knew better. We are about to learn the impact of stupidity on nearly every level.


As such I have a few issues with the AFR article. It is a good article, but a flawed one. One that boasts American supremacy, the little issue is that they no longer have the field. You see one source gives me “US National Debt Spiked by $851 billion in One Month, to $32.3 Trillion” now, I am not stating that this is true, but if this is true, then the US is already merely in a holding pattern until the next debt ceiling political setting and wth that BRICS (with Saudi Arabia and the UAE) will become a winner and the new global power. At that point China, India and Saudi Arabia will be better off shedding Russia. It has become too big a political and economical danger to them. And it is merely an egg timer away.

Back to the game
This is when my mind took me back to the game and a ‘new’ game. You see all these things were in my brain contemplating when I consider a different approach to the use of active and passive abilities in gaming. It played in my mind when I was remastering a Microprose game with similar settings, but now with a different approach. I call it Agent Gamer. This would be exclusive to Amazon Luna and whomever buys my IP. You see we have all seen passive powers in games like Mass Effect, Diablo 3 and more games. But they all have a similar approach to the use of passive powers. I am uprooting that and taking a different view. A game with active elements and passive elements. But you can spike these passive elements in different ways. In addition to adding several additions to the game, we can also rack certain abilities. It is like colour mingling. 

Consider the wheel. We have three basic colours (Blue, Yellow and Red). When we increase these skills we also influence the adjacent colours. Blue will influence Green and Purple, Yellow will influence Orange and Green and Red will influence Orange and Purple. It is simple setting where you make one 10% more effective (or easier), yet in the same setting increase the effectiveness of the other two by 5%. And this can be done in a multitude of ways, but the game is called ‘Agent Gamer’ and as such I will not reveal too much here. You see, to make Microsoft collapse by 2026 requires me to set the field to make the others more powerful (hence the Amazon Luna). Sony and Nintendo are on track to make their own wins (diminishing Microsoft in the process) Adobe and Apple are on other tracks and Google is no longer a contender in gaming (they have other fields). Overall the arrogance of Microsoft is about to bite them hard. Azure is doing not as good as some sources reveal. We see the Microsoft spin engines turning and we are given ‘We Think Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Can Manage Its Debt With Ease’ but I think they are in a bad state and it is getting worse. Still I have more than a year to watch them collapse, I merely want the timeline to be as correct as possible and as such if I can help their opposition being stronger and better I will do so. Gaming is only one side of it, but they interfered with my gaming pleasure and according to Zeus (Hades too), I can hold a grudge like nothing they have ever seen and I am happy to prove these two correct. In the end the largest stage could be coming from Saudi Arabia, especially as they are eager to feed their Esport settings and 50 million new members will go a long way towards that goal. Amazon had their chance and now it is up to the other eligible parties, which includes Tencent Technologies. 

Enjoy Monday and for those still overcoming Canada Day last weekend, have a second coffee before you start any work.

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June 14, 2023 · 23:50

The cross over

Yes, we have all seen it. Episodes where one crosses over in the other. It happens in gaming too, but it is seemingly more rare there. Yet what happens when we take advantage of this? An example is Azura’s Star. An item that has the ability to be massively powerful if you use it right. And there is the nag. Due to some constraints that is almost impossible and there is no fault, no blame. The fact that this game still has a hold on people after its release date of 11.11.11, almost 12 years later is nothing to be sneered at. Bethesda has earned the right to its legendary status. The fact that most of us (me included) would love to replay Fallout 3 on a PS5 shows that there is a lot Bethesda has to be proud of. So what is this about?

Consider that we would be able to build a charging station for Azura’s star. It is not instant, it will take hours, perhaps a day for Azura Star or a Grand Soul Gem, or a Black Soul Gem to get charged. Yet that stage offers a lot more than merely a powered gem. A setting where we have a mission to create a charging pedestal. Another mission that is all about functionality. Why no one considered it? I cannot tell, but in an earlier article a few years back, I created a magical duplicator for a castle (the one you could conquer in an expansion of Oblivion). A device, created and over time it would duplicate the item you had. In this one case Bows. As such it would take increasing more time. A hunting bow would take 30 minutes and a glass bow would take several hours. But once the stations are filled. The guards on the walls could upgrade whatever bow they had to a much more powerful bow. And it could be done with almost any item, but a sword would take another duplicating station. It was my idea to offer the setting where the guards as NPC’s would get upgraded to a much more able opponent and the items are locked to that NPC. When they die the weapons vanish. Swords, great swords, maces, Axes, Bows. You could create a real guard that was the fear of anyone trying to invade your castle. But how to create it? Well that was the easy part. It is how you can create a balance, or an imbalance that does not affect or benefit you beyond the normal scope. That is the key question. Even in the game I set up for the developer of Amazon Luna, PS5 and basically all non-Microsoft systems. Balance is still important. Too powerful and you damage the game, too weak and it is not worthy of pursuit. So there are settings we need to consider to make it worthy of chasing. And it falls into the realm of evolving NPC’s in your game. Because that will be a next step in most RPG games that would want to take their game a decade of more past its inception date. Charging stations are merely one step, a natural step, not even a gimmick. It came to mind, because if Fable will become the game whose trailer brought a smile to my face, we all need to up our games. This is how it should be. A powerful Microsoft implies that Sony, Amazon and Tencent will need to up their game too. As such I have set a lot online for all the non-Microsoft companies to take a learning from. More could and should be done. If this means that gaming in 2025 comes at an all time high, I will have done what I needed to do in my lifetime to progress gaming. A worthy endeavour if ever there was one. 

My brain had a much less noble thoughts on cross overs, but that does not matter. I was able to set it right and that is what matters to me. And crossovers could be applied nearly everywhere (as long as you own the IP). I made mention on this in the early development of the Luna and in my case the Luna key. So in this example that I am giving you, what happens when you have game 1 (System shock) and game two (Cyberpunk 2077) allows you to make a much more powerful firearm charger? I added another example in the past where Fallout Shelter could upgrade Fallout 4 (or whatever comes next) and that is interesting because you now have interaction between a mobile or tablet with a console. Gaming to a wider degree without compromising either. We need to consider these steps as we Crete new games. Ubisoft tried this with AC Brotherhood and did not get it quite right. Not wrong, but not quite right. Still it was worthy of trying and it did play out nice. Yet I believe they could have taken it much further. I personally believe that they were not serious enough. They didn’t create two games, merely one to add to the other. That wasn’t a great step, but it was their step to make. 

Often enough these additions are merely cosmetic, but they do not need to be. Crossovers are an option often ignored or denied for decent reasons, but what happens when we overcome that weakness?

Enjoy the day!

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June 10, 2023 · 17:48

How to ping a delusional mind

You would think this is about someone and you would be right. This time it is about me, all about me. You see, if you read my previous article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/06/10/without-intro-course/) called ‘Without intro course’ you would see that I am giving a lot more attention to the NPC part of RPG gaming. I have no idea how it is currently done. Yet I suddenly had a spark and I will only lift part of that veil. You see Microsoft is always watching and those losers are out of the game of consideration. This will be only for Sony (Playstation), Amazon (Luna) or the Tencent (Logitech G handheld). I personally would love to include Nintendo, but they would not be able to facilitate this. That is not negatively intended. Their system is awesome, but this is nextgen stuff, beyond the PS5. And then only three remain as I see it. This new system is a reengineered solution that could facilitate up to 25,000 NPC’s in a game. No one has ever done that and I got there in the weirdest way. The first thing my brain gave me was “When is a VOR not a VOR?” Which I got from Die Hard 2 (1990) it started a sea of ideas and as my mind was redesigning what it was designing in the first place a thought came to me and as I thought it through it made more and more sense and this is merely the groundwork. You see as I got thinking I remembered my old classes (UTS, 2011) which got me to the IP of Vinton Cerf. Yet his idea was set to other settings and it as not the obvious of choices, but if I am right, this ‘improved’ patent might fly. You see one setting is “If the improvement is also considered non-obvious, then the patent office would grant you a patent on the improvement”. I feel certain that Vinton never considered this application. The idea of game streaming and usage for the NPC characters never existed and until this moment doesn’t seem to exist. Some issues we see in Skyrim (not a bad word about that game) and the Horizon series never seemingly touched on this. Yet if I am right, my brooding has moved me to an entirely new setting of RPG gaming and that I keep under wraps and add this to my first IP as an optional bonus. There would be more less obvious advantages, but that would be giving away too much of what my delusional mind just set in motion. No matter how this turns out. My imagination engines are running full throttle and it isn’t even Sunday yet. 

Have fun.

 

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May 30, 2023 · 13:48

My boiling point

Yup, I have one and the Guardian pushed my button. We all have buttons that can be pushed. If you sing “It’s a cruel Summer, leaving me, leaving me here on my own” really off key to Summer Mcintosh there is a chance she’ll blow a gasket too (it is based on classical music by Ace of Base, 1992). Some dislike the limelight, others (like me) have other buttons. And there is the start for today. The article by Rupert Neate a wealth correspondent (whatever that is) is by their own submission a reporter on covering the super rich and inequality, again whatever the hell that is. But let’s look at that article (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/may/29/2-tax-uk-rich-list-families-raise-22bn-year-reform-inequality) where he starts by hiding behind ‘could’ making him some clueless labor tool. The text “A modest wealth tax on the richest 350 families in the UK could raise more than £20bn a year – enough to fund the construction of 145,000 new affordable homes a year – according to research by fairer taxation campaigners” and there is the emotional useless stage. ‘Constructing 145,000 new affordable homes a year’ We will not get the equations there. We do not get locality because that pricing leaves London far outside of the scope. No his goal is limelight, to hide behind ‘could’ and emotions. Then we get “A 2% tax on assets above £10m held by all members of the Sunday Times rich list could raise as much as £22bn, according to analysis by Tax Justice UK, the Economic Change Unit and the New Economics Foundation (NEF).” And still we get no equations or justification on these numbers. We get another emotional ‘tax the rich’ by an emotional tool. And he merely ‘emotionally validates’ some Sunday Times list without justification. 

You see, lets take a look at the Guardian from June 2017 where we were given (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/21/battersea-power-station-affordable-homes-almost-halved-by-developer ) ’Battersea Power Station developer slashes number of affordable homes’, there we see how Malaysian investors slashed 40% of the agreed affordable homes. How did that end? Nothing (and nowhere), you useless tool! Where is the prosecution of exploiting foreign investors? Where are your values there?  In my personal opinion Rupert Neate needs to buy a lollie, sit in a corner, suck on that and shut the fuck up (pardon my language). 

It is always labour minded idiots that are heralding ‘inequality’ and that is a larger problem. I am not against PROPER taxation, but these people according to taxation law paid their fair share and then some. You see in 2022 according to one source “629,000 people paid the additional rate of income tax is 45%, and is paid on earnings above £125,140 a year”, so these people already are in the 45% bracket (don’t worry I have a solution). They have paid their fair share, yet there is another matter. I am not blind to certain levels of inequality. You see fair taxation is also needed on corporations, Apple didn’t become a trillion dollar industry because of their devices. Their tax write offs are unheard of and that had to change decades ago. I wish them all their profits, yet there should be taxation. Retail Gazette gives us ‘UK Apple stores paid less than £800,000 tax despite £971.5m of sales’ did that useless wealth correspondent look at that part? And they are merely one of dozens of companies that are legally stretching the lines of taxation laws. Then we are given “Those on the rich list include the prime minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murty at number 275 out of 350, with £529m, and the 32-year-old Duke of Westminster, with £9.9bn, at number 11.” And that might be true, so did they pay their taxation? It seems Apple didn’t. And that list grows, whilst the useless people are focussed on people who paid their dues according to tax laws. You see, there is another income stream. We get so much emotional garbage from magazines and newspapers that they should LOSE their 0% VAT setting, we can set that to 6% or 10%, there is your income right there. If you cannot properly report the news, you should be taxed. You forgot about the mirror image you see when you get up in the morning. So I give you another income source. If you cannot properly do your job, you get to be taxed as well.

Issue solved!

You see, if we are to believe the HMRC, six hundred and twenty nine thousand people pay their fair share and then some. So this rich list is utter BS, I say we tax the media, lets see how long they can play games whilst letting some useless wealth correspondent continue their ‘labor’ needs. Yes, this is personal, but we see this come again and again whilst no one is doing anything about tax laws or exploiting investors. Why not? It seems that the Guardian has a few fences to mend and I suggest that they hop to it, I reckon that they could spring that 10% VAT bill, but there is a chance that they will cry like little bitches, just like they did when the Leveson report was released. 

So, they pressed my button and this was my response. So, have a nice day whilst I kill a few people in Skyrim with a bow (we all unwind in our own way), they will never know what hit them.

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February 10, 2023 · 21:14

The anger within

I saw a headline on BBC (see below) I wondered what it was about and I got angry, this happens and it will happen to us all. 

The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64572328) gives us a view. In this case on a person who might call himself a reporter, yet as I personally see him, a mere political hack without a future. To get there we need to look at a few parts. The first one is that we see the mention of Hogwarts Legacy, but the ENTIRE article does not mention Avalanche software once, not once and I have an issue with this. You see hacks mention one thing and then talk about something else entirely. That happens here. As I personally see it Hogwarts Legacy is a clear labour of love. It is what happens when the art people are in charge and not the business people.

We are then given “The Guardian’s games editor Keza MacDonald wasn’t as enthusiastic as some, writing: “Hogwarts Legacy derives its magic from its setting, not from its game design, which is competent but unspectacular.”” OK, a person has an opinion and whatever this is is an opinion, I do not agree. The game is close to spectacular, it is HUGE and Hogwarts is HUGE. The game design is amazing, not entirely unique but amazing. That is my view and to add that I have had one glitch since I started playing it over 20 hours ago is evidence on how good the game is in its architectural way. The one glitch is not really part of anything, but honesty needs me to point that out and I merely found one glitch. I also found something amazing (see down the story). The additional issue is shown with “Travis Northup, reviewing for IGN, wrote: “Its open-world adventure captures all the excitement and wonder of the Wizarding World with its memorable new characters, challenging and nuanced combat, and a wonderfully executed Hogwarts student fantasy that kept me glued to my controller for dozens of hours.”” I agree with Travis on the game. I personally give the game a 92% rating (the glitch brought it down a little).

The beauty
The beauty is seen when I played the game a second time. The first I only got to the place where I can make my own potions (avoiding spoilers). I wanted to see how I did as I replayed it and I did better, but I also learned two additional things. The first was one mission it got handed to me in two DIFFERENT ways. The first time as a Ravenclaw via Olivanders and a different stage of finding things, the second time as a Hufflepuff via a painting that gave me another location and it also came with a short visit to Azkaban, and another location, they ended in the same place and of course that part was the same, but it shows the beauty of Hogwarts Legacy, I can only hope that we get two additional ways to get to this part. The second part is experienced as the gear has a different impact on the player, the second time my offensive skills were a lot higher (with the same gear) than the first time where my defensive skills were a lot higher. I cannot tell at present whether this is intentional, or if there is a random part in play. But the effect is awesome. My Ravenclaw character needs a different approach than my Hufflepuff character does and that makes for a great game. There is no mention of that anywhere. Optionally there is no real blame, but that does not make Steffan Powell any less of a hack. This game is awesome and the mention of “I think, 20 years after the books came out, the world is in a different paradigm now – where it’s not really JK Rowling’s any more. It’s the community’s instead” angered me. The wizarding world is the IP of JK Rowling and Steffan better get a grip on his stupidity. We are guests in the world of JK Rowling. I do not care about her personal views (I never did) and I do not know what exactly her views are because the media alters and edits to its own need for digital dollars. Avalanche used that IP and created a new view that is unique and even as it is linked to JK, there is every chance that this will continue, whether it is only in games is unknown to me at present. I have seen all the hate and all the BS, yet the reality is that this game became a massive hit and will most likely rule the award ceremonies all over the world until march 2024. Avalanche did an amazing job, but the BBC (the people who rehired a person that is seen as allegedly guilty of killing the former princess of Wales) is all about the next political setting via hacks (as I personally see it). This game is too good for that BS approach. There is also a mention of repetitiveness and that is not entirely false, but it tends to be the issue with a lot of RPG games. The previous part shows just how beautiful. This game is and I am playing the game, not racing the game. In 15 hours I got to 20% of quests and 4% of exploration, so this game is huge, no doubt about it and I look forward to seeing a lot more. 

I do not care about Eva Echo and her agenda, I am playing a game by Avalanche. On the other side, I am not really willing to go against her. She has her views, her opinions and I have mine. We are from different worlds, our worlds do not overlap and they do not need to, as such I will not go against her either. That is as simple as I can make it, but any political hack using a great game for his infantile needs get the not so nice side of me and in this so does his editor (Blathnaid Healy). We can point fingers all we like, but someone approved this article. I also have optional issues with Sebastian Croft, not the person perse, but he is mentioned as ‘distancing himself’, perhaps for very valid reasons, my issue is that the article does not clearly bring this out, merely a link to the tweet which had limitations on characters used. But the BBC knew that upfront, did they not? 

What you as a GAMER need to know is that this game is a lot better than most claim, it has a few issues that any RPG will have (even Skyrim) and the art is beyond believe. Yes there are limits to the enemies yet I have seen over half a dozen in the first 10 hours and in real life all enemies are human, as such the game gives us more. Now, there will be valid reasons why people do not like RPG games (they might like GTA more), there are people who do not like the Wizarding world, all fair enough, but lets keep gaming to gaming and not some BS approach to appease political hacks. 

I have seen too much hatred over the last 6 months on this alone to accept the BS settings especially from someone like the BBC. It angered me a lot more than I am happy about. A game as good as this one does not deserve this usage.

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February 8, 2023 · 22:28

When the pool is too deep

Twi days ago I wrote Brain switch, it was me on a joyride through my brain as I was reengineering  IP over and over and it went faster and faster. I got a handle on it by playing Hogwart Legacy. You see gaming is more than an escape for me. It is a passion that allows me to take my mind away from things and that is at times a good thing. It allowed my subconscious to work on Engonos, the story of the grandson of Hades. Weirdly enough I was inspired by Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Or better stated, he gave me the idea to take a trip to the right. In part I was already doing s in another way, but I suddenly realised that I could enhance one character to get a lot more out of the whole. It is in part a little bit of a drag. You see, I can go memento on that character to keep the story in line and not give away too much, but that too has its advantages and drawbacks. The advantage is that two characters are drawn into the story, one makes sense already, the other one does not on the surface of things, but in Olympian lore it does. As such I tend towards that part of the solution, even though one of them already has a larger role to play and I set that in motion. Now that these roles are staged and partially set, I need to build the background stories for all involved. As such the memento approach, the other one is a historic jump, it seems cleaner, but it opens up too much mesh. A combination has benefits, but at that point I need to be cautious how I approach the matter and I need to script some elements, but that is not a problem. One lesson I learned a long time ago, when a problem is too big, chip it into smaller manageable pieces. That was all good and fine, but that suddenly gave me a few more ideas towards some RPG designs I was entertaining, to be made freely available for exclusive Amazon Luna materials.

I get that this does not make sense, but the reason is simple. Microsoft made valid steps in gaming, we might not like them, but they did what any corporation did, set yourself apart. Yet they did so by buying Bethesda and making parts exclusive to the Xbox. This is a valid, but unappealing approach. This setting changed when Avalanche launched Hogwarts legacy and they set the bar way higher than Skyrim ever was, making it a problem for Microsoft. You see if Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 are on par with Hogwart Legacy, Microsoft loses a lot more than they bargained for. Now if I can add to that pain by giving Amazon Luna developers a sight to more software that is close to on par with Microsoft (not an easy task) they will feel even more pain and that is what I had been after. I expected this to be a lot harder, but Avalanche gave me a trump card, they surpassed Bethesda (what they had up to now), this is not unexpected because Skyrim is 11 years old. Yet it makes my work a little easier. The RPG has storylines, it has a balanced economic system and it has evolution, I only need to set a new stage that has a new kind of nemesis system. Not some copy of Shadow of Mordor, but something new, something we haven’t seen before. I want to counter grinding to some extent. I have one side which is a much larger map, the other side is a new kind of adversarial system and I want to add to that. But it needs to enhance what is, not replace what could be. This is hard to explain for now, but it is in the works, in the meantime, those thoughts are helping me to give larger rise to Engonos, which was what I had in mind all along. Cogs within cogs, not the most elegant of explanations, but it will do for now.

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February 8, 2023 · 00:16

Wands, Witches and Wizards

To get to the good stuff, that yummie chocolaty centre we need to make a small detour and it matters.

Prelude
I have been a huge Skyrim fan. I bought the game on 11/11/11 and to the best of my knowledge it is pretty much the best RPG ever seen. I played it on Xbox360, Playstation 3, then the Legendary edition on PS4 and Xbox One and the Anniversary version on PS5. The game is close to perfect. This matters because it took someone 11 years to get there and surpass it. Avalanche got there and had room to spare. They upped the bar for quality gaming by a lot. 

Start
The previous part is important. This is not a Harry Potter game, it is an open world RPG with a wizarding world theme and they did one hell of a job. As stated it plays a century before the boy who lived came into the picture and what was done is as close to perfect as I have ever seen it. I am not fussed about the 1-2 second delays with some of exit parts of Hogwarts, it is a lot better then anything else and this matters. So far I played 10 hours and I got 4% done. This game is huge, the castle is huge and you will get lost there, but there are options (censoring spoilers). The world outside of Hogwarts is huge, optionally larger than Skyrim, but it is not a comparison, Hogwarts is so large it will strike you in many ways. I started as a Ravenclaw student (I like blue), but I already know that I will play the game three more times to see everything, Gryffindor most likely last. What does matter is that you will recognise parts and classrooms as you saw them in the movies, but that feeling of discovery does not wane and it merely improves and gets larger as you see more and more. Weirdly enough I lost my life three times and got to redo the fight. The game is invigorating and it leaves you with a sense of accomplishment as you progress. The game has puzzles, some are simple, some are devilishly evil and never boring. This game is for anyone who loves RPG and even more for those who love the (Harry Potter) wizarding world. 

You will see things, you will seek things and you will wonder and try to figure things out. The game is truly a step forward and I was speechless more than once. The important thing to realise is that I did not play it in 4K, I do not own a 4K TV and even then the game overwhelms. So, I reckon that once I have one of those puppies, this game will overwhelm even more. 

No matter how you slice it Avalanche software created something we all hope for and we never got it. Well, this time around this player (Avalanche) delivered. Avalanche created a new level gameplay so close to perfection, you are in for a treat. Any hater of this game is as I personally see it simple and stupid. People who dislike RPG’s might not go for this, but I urge them to try (if possible), If you disliked the Harry Potter movies, this game as an RPG is still fulfilling in several ways. This is definitely one of those must buy titles. But I do get that those who dislike RPG and Harry Potter will not go for it, but that should not make them haters, merely a gamer with other interests. 

Consequence
There is a consequence and it is for Bethesda and Microsoft. You see Avalanche has raised the bar after 11 years. Skyrim was the game everyone compared to and that is now no longer the case. It makes sense because it took 11 years to improve on it and Avalanche does pull that off. Yet for Bethesda and Microsoft it becomes a new issue. Starfield (which looks AWESOME) and whatever Elder Scrolls title comes next needs to be a lot better then this and that is a massively tall order. You cannot put them next to one another, but there will be comparisons and if these two RPG games fall flat next to Hogwarts Legacy their goose is pretty much cooked. I did not know what to expect but a game this good is a little overwhelming and possibly the other two titles will be better, but I have to say, it will be a herculean task for Bethesda. Avalanche the next generation of RPG that is never to be underestimated. 

Hogwarts Legacy is not merely a Harry Potter game, it is an open world RPG that will knock your socks off, that latter part I did not see coming. Well done Avalanche! And I would not be surprised if WB will turn this game into a TV series, the storyline is that good as are the locations (many we never saw in the movies). I reckon it will be a few months that WB will turn this 200 hour game (estimated) in a series with several seasons, but that is sheer speculation from my side.

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September 20, 2022 · 21:13

Equational parts

Today might take a moment. You see I was getting ready to write something else when my brain started to shout in my head. The phrase was ‘shifting sands’. I am uncertain what started that, but when the brain shouts, I tend to listen. I had to look it up as it was kinda familiar but the exact meaning wasn’t clear. The dictionary gave me “used in reference to something that is constantly changing, especially unpredictably” that did not completely helped me, yet a thought was getting hold there. You see, I offered part of my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And even as Amazon and Google decided to ignore the option, I saw the IP for what it was, a stage to something larger and the three elements that it did cover was a lot bigger then the sum of the individual parts, as such I thought I was sitting pretty, even  though I am not great at waiting. So as I was contemplating the individual parts, I suddenly realised that there are additional stages that interact. As such we get “used in reference to elements or parts that are constantly changing towards the engine that supports them, predictable or not” and if I am correct (still uncertain) then the IP picks up a few billion in value. Now, at this point I do not completely care about its total value, but the 20 year sales commission will take a leap forward. So let me try to explain it without compromising the IP. You have a game for example Skyrim, this came has locations and this game has clothing. You can see both as cosmetic parts, but when they become elements of the game they change application. For example cold Skyrim relies on warm clothing, we have (almost) never been been exposed to these elements, but what when that changes? What happens when the bad weather picks up? How useful will a bow be? All elements Skyrim ignored, but what if that is not the case? So what happens when you are dressed for Skyrim and you end up in a place like Valenwood? Now, you can see that when you are in a game like Elder Scrolls or Fallout. But what happens when we go into a game like Diablo? Or even more contextual, I saw today that someone is making Impossible Mission 3, a game franchise that flourished on the CBM64, so some people are picking up the ideas I had and they are evolving them. So what happens when we take the simple game below and make the terminals more interactive and more important, what happens when we do not have limited time, but limited access because elements are still unfound? 

Have you thought of that? I reckon Google did not and neither did Amazon, and no one cares what Microsoft thinks, but Apple remains an option. Now take THAT idea and add the game ‘V’. There on the CBM64, we merely ran from place to place and we were content, but what happens when we add the mini game of Impossible Mission to that game (or the other way round)? 

I had some thoughts in that direction in the past, but I never contemplated a larger stage but when the system is accepted by Saudi Arabia the larger stages become debatable and they become elements of discussion. They are not games, but the same setting applies. The shifting sands elements allow me to grow system one with system two and we get a much larger system 3. Systems like Facebook sort of gave it to you, but they basically added to the junk you had and called it novelty or ‘expanded opportunity’, but we could see that it was merely more for THEM. Yet when these systems are (partially) in YOUR control and you get to decide whether you want system two to enlarge system one? We get a form of system individuality, like a system SHOULD have been all along and that is at the back of my mind (without giving the IP away), as such we could optionally see that the application of shifting sands to a user system will make it truly user friendly, now consider that we add security like WE want it to be, whatever it is. Now we have a new setting, well optionally a new setting but these systems are up to US, like they should have been all along. I just never contemplated it because I was thinking like an American as the expression goes and now I see that more is possible, but the application is a new one, and it is not free of challenges. You see, how can we evolve a closed system? It has to be closed as there is too much cybercrime and cyber theft. There is not a way to make it zero, but we can make it so that only the top tier hackers might get away with it. So whomever the 80 people are that the NAB hires (see previous article), they are all about stopping hackers, whilst the access levels were the ones that required scrutiny. Should you doubt that then consider the news that we got merely an hour ago ‘Major crypto trader Wintermute hit by $160 million hack: CEO’, there we are being told “Decentralised finance platforms and software, which aim to provide crypto-based financial services without traditional gatekeepers such as banks, have been targeted by numerous heists in recent years. The sector is little-regulated and victims of crime rarely have recourse” yes, because hackers really take notice of rules and laws and a bank vault that is open is one they can access, and there is a reason that banks use traditional gatekeepers (pointless or not), the larger stage is that open systems are done for (like Microsoft) a new setting is required and that is what I figured out. I am certain that others have too, but the greed of Fintech is stopping them and as such they lose small amounts like $160,000,000 such is life. And as such the world turns, so congrats you hackers on getting enough to pay next year rent, but at some point Fintech will grow up (or they go out of business). It is merely a matter of time which of the two becomes the winner. 

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May 27, 2022 · 23:17

First tally of thoughts

After yesterday’s article, I started to make a tally of what the game ‘has’. In the first there was the article ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which had a run down of a lot. But that rundown was not enough. There was the search ‘Lawlordtobe + RPG’ which gave me a lot more of what I wrote (and weirdly enough at least one story I forgot about). The basics are covered. In the basics there is the map, the character and the story. In the deeper run, the map is also covering the environment, the economy and the map itself (which is an environment, challenges and spiking of the map).

Spiking
Spiking is an early term I had. Like in places like Skyrim and Oblivion, there is a lack of caves, ruins and other places. So we spike the map to have these places. Yet the maps to some degree have an approach to caves (and some look really good) but as I personally see them unnatural. There are two problems with my train of thought. Caves are set in stone (literally so), as such they are part of the permanent map. Some places have way too many ruins and these ruins are a weird  form of small. But the idea of some ruins are a good thing, yet how to employ them? 

Brush and thickets, Fallen trees, Hollow trees, Evergreen trees, Rock formations, Rock overhangs, Caves, Low landforms and high landforms. Some are for single opponents, some are for groups. Ruins are a side here. They tend to be a good place for groups. But the setting needs to be natural (or as close as natural as possible). If there is a ruin, there was a reason that the building was there before it was a ruin. And not always is it a castle or a keep. But spiking is a dangerous setting. There is a danger of making it a place of convenience, and that is dangerous for the game. 

As we look into the economy I saw the dangers of ‘loot’ in the game. In some game we enter an old (really old) place, but it has the most modern of ‘loot’. So we redefine what loot is. broken swords, daggers, broken shields, old coins, chains. Elements that can be reforged into metals, old coins (copper, silver, gold) that can be set into metals. Yes there will be chests with actual new(er) stuff. Like groups of brigands, they have bounty, they have conquered stuff (that needs liberating). It will not be about wealth. In one RPG I had 300K, so in what living form of delusional would an adventurer have this much money? Too many RPG seem to value credits as an indication of achievement. That too needs to change. 

I took examples from classical masters, from stories (the non-Robin Hood kind) and from historical events, but they need to evolve in RPG gaming. In the economy that side is merely a cog, but a cog that could evolve. Yet the station of evolution is a larger problem that I have not solved yet. I did like the nemesis system that we see in the Shadow of Mordor, but that was THEIR system, I need a similar but different system. This is to stop grinding, the stage where there will be spawning (one man’s ruin) is the next persons envy. But if the previous group was defeated, the next group will have better defences, and optionally one or two more brigands. There are shelters for singular people and those people are sly a lot more like cutthroats, so no warning. All sides we see very little of in current RPG’s. All sides that are new in the RPG.

Stories
I gave more than one story start and that is central in any RPG, yet there is also the additional stage. You see there is no stage where we can do it all, play it all, live it all (the latter is a matter of debate). But the stories cannot be around you, around the player. The main quests yes, but the side quests need a larger setting than we are used to. There is a side that takes me back to Robert Ludlum’s Scarlatti Inheritance (I think), a local village event and a burial that is part of the story. So to set a side quest needs the seeding of a story all by itself that has several connections. There needs to be an intelligent part in this, so that stories can be written en mass and spread in the game, so that some side quests are not part of every game (another way to prevent grinding) and there we see that we need 50-150 side quests. That can intervene to a larger degree to the character that you play at that time. So far we see the foundation of an RPG that can be played on console or streamer. 

Then we get to the cogs of the economy, I spoke about them but I considered one additional set of cogs for each part. About that in the next story which will happen during my weekend.

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