Tag Archives: Sony

October 12, 2020 · 20:43

When we reconsider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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October 5, 2020 · 20:14

A Freebie for you

Yes, you read it right, I am about to give you all a freebie. Over the last two days I set in motion a new piece of IP, but there are parts that I am not ready for, the idea is, but I am not, So I am making it public domain with this article. It all started two days ago, there was an imbalance and I set it in writing but something happened as I did it, I realised that no one had taken it to this level ever before, all the clever people at Microsoft, Apple and Google, they have nothing on this, so I am making it public domain. I have at least 4 more pieces of IP, several ready for patenting, all mine, and this is my way of pushing the world into action. I considered to be a Jonas Salk in disguise, but that is not me, this is about something else and the power of progression is not to sell it, but to make it common good for all, if it cannot be patented it is open source to all who consider it and even as they do, there are a few persons who have the advantage, they worked on the paper that could be the foundation of what this becomes. Yet before I do that, I need to tell you the story how this came about, it is actually important, it makes what comes next easier to comprehend. 

My background in all this is data, I have been involved with data systems, legacy systems, cleaning data and arbitrary manipulation of data for well over 30 years, so I have been around a long time (I am actually that old). I was there when DBase 2 started, I was there at the beginning of the Clipper Compiler. The start of Microsoft SQL Server (which they bought from Sybase), the VAX/VMS data systems, IBM DB2 on AIX and more. I have seen data in so many ways it could be regarded as scary, but that was the past. An imbalance hit me two days ago and it resulted in the article ‘The mind stage’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/04/the-mind-stage/), I gave my view, however some threw questions at me, two were valid. So I set out to answer them to the best of my ability and it resulted in ‘The accusation and more’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/05/the-accusation-and-more/), yet as I wrote the article and set out with the examples, an idea hit my head and I had been busy all day today (in the back of my mind) to sort it out, in all this the discussed paper ‘Optimal control of a rumour propagation model with latent period in emergency event’ by Liang’an Huo, Tingting Lin, Chongjun Fan (et al) set my mind in motion.

To explain this a little more, consider a page rank (something Stanford University came up with for Google), every page has a rank and that is what sets out some level of importance or perhaps influence is at times a better word. And until now it was often enough, but 5G allows for people to be exposed to data 10 times more and now we see the pressure that the reader is exposed to, what is relevant? You see from the market research side we get exposed to bias, it results in: 

  • Irrational Escalation
  • Social Desirability Bias
  • Knowledge Bias

Yet the stage is no longer a level playing field, the exposure to the people is almost 100%, as such we see the need for an additional number, a ‘bias weight’, this is however not linked to the document but the reader, at this stage it is there but it is mappable, in the future it is less likely so, and like response weights, factorial weights and other corrective measures, no-one has taken the time to set the stage for bias, but in 5G it will be a big thing, much bigger than anyone realises. 

As such the stage is more important, if 100% is exposed to bias via news, via social media, via websites and preset stages, it becomes more and more important to figure out how much bias a person is exposed to and 5G allows for this (well 4G allows for it too, but the systems slow down too much), with 5G it all goes faster, so the stage needs adjustment and adding a group of filters becomes essential for all kinds of reasons. The paper gives us “Rumours are part of our everyday life, and its spreading has a significant impact on human lives. Hayakawa defines rumour as a kind of social phenomenon that a similar remark spreads on a large scale in a short time through chains of communication”, which I accept, yet bias moves in pretty much the same way, we have however until now never given it the consideration it deserves. Just like rumours, bias works like accumulation and that is where the sausage gets the sauce, yet in all this, who is the biased person? Can he influence our needs positively or negatively? That answer needs to be found. Not because it is nice, or because it is essential, but for all kinds of data collecting fields all kinds of product fields and all kinds of manufacturing it will matter soon enough, when 5G is racing at top speeds, it will become a massive issue and the developers need time to get any kind of systems in place, so I am making the thoughts public domain, and you all get to have good luck with it.

In this field, feel free to delete my thoughts, feel free to ignore me, but whomever works out the math will make one hell of an amount of money (please remember me if you do). Oh, and those who think I am rambling? In 1997 I came up with a servicing solution and the company at the centre, my bosses laughed at my idea, I still have the email somewhere, Facebook came 4 years later and did what I thought of (and more). I had one other idea which Sony got, but they neglected it and now some see the benefits the this system had, so I am decently certain on my ideas.

The work I looked at referred to Daley and Kendall, yet in that stage the setting is to some degree missing or incomplete (for my purpose). As we read “At any time an individual can be classified as one of three categories: X(t) denotes those individuals who are ignorant of the rumour; Y(t) denotes those individuals who are actively spread- ing the rumour; and Z(t) denotes those individuals who know the rumour but have ceased spreading it”, we can exchange rumour for bias, but the would be incorrect (incomplete is more correct), even as we see three directions of bias (mentioned earlier), we need to see that in two dimensions. Internal bias and external bias. For this example I will use gamers (myself), I am a PlayStation guy, I dumped my Xbox because of Microsoft actions and I lost faith in their product. So there is an internal bias towards Sony (optionally Nintendo too), and it is in the ‘automated’ negative towards Microsoft. We cannot do this on every brand, it becomes a data mess, but the exposure I have on classes might be different, a stage of Z scores in 6 parts (3 internal and three external) might be easier, and as this is set to the person, the seeker online, it is the persons bean (a java bean pun), so we need to find a larger solution that can paint whole populations by the actions they take, and this is not about transgressing on privacy, but on the system wielder disregardful of who they are, So as Kendall and Daley were in a stage of three, it is not merely ignorant of the bias, there will be an internal bias towards brands, towards application and towards choice, but the external factor is one that we see if the person has been exposed to, so we see part of the solution in front of us and to find the core the adjusts bias is partially found and over time optionally completed, but in this we are not about what the score is, but if  certain score exceeds a certain value, if that is the case the person is biassed, and now we can decently reflect whether the person is the one that we seek (we being the interested party whomever they are) and with the number, we get a much larger efficiency towards what the goal was. The old expression is ‘all cats are grey in the dark’, which now gets us to ‘all seekers are equally grey on the internet’, which changes the game for everyone, yet when someone learns of an ability to filter or weigh bias, that stage changes and it will change for everyone depending on the internet.

So whatever you decide, have a great day.

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October 4, 2020 · 03:46

The mind stage

Where is the border of sanity? The is the question that is central at this point. Yes, we are having slightly too much fun with the new President of the United Stage, it is Mr. Covid, he is only 19 but running the US. As the news is exploding all over the news and the internet, we are given name after name, cluster after cluster and it is hitting the White House, the Senate and optionally Congress as well. After that there have been the dozens of attacks on Saudi Arabia, yet Iran is left outside of consideration and Ubisoft is getting hammered. Now, in part Ubisoft has itself to thank for what is happening, and I am not referring to the news that 25% was a witness or victim of unacceptable behaviour, or whatever that means. I am not making light of the situation, I truly am not. Ubisoft is part of its own problem, as marketing is trying to inflate hypes, we see this with ‘Prince Of Persia Remake Nintendo Switch Box Art Leaks Online’, as well as ‘Ubisoft Appears To Tease Rayman Project, Deletes Post After Fans Get Too Hyped’. The problem with hypes is not the they are hypes, they are the figments of illusional marketing. To set this straight I need to take you to an alternative setting

2 out of 3

There are three levers for a new house, one has the settings Cheap-Expensive, the second is called ‘Fast build – Slow build’ and the third one is ‘High quality – Low Quality’, the issues is that you can only select two, the third one will be set against you, which ones do you choose?

Marketing has a similar stage. Large visibility- small visibility, quick – slow, large placement versus small placement and high quality versus low quality. There are a few more elements, but this is merely to illuminate, in these four only two can be set and now you see the danger for Ubisoft as it ignored timing and quality, whilst keeping visibility and placement to large, and now the ignored quality is costing them. So as we see leak after leak (which I believe has been orchestrated by marketing element), we see all the setting in place and there is no consideration towards quality. So whilst we see “The players are back in the game but the way Ubisoft handled the whole ordeal didn’t hold up to a good standard. As a way to thank the players for patience with the patch, the devs offered some freebies to lessen the inconvenience caused by tardiness. One of them was the custom Desert Eagle and the other a grand total of 1,200 Skell Credits” we see the adaptation of quantity, and to fix it the gamers are treated to ‘some freebies’, as I see it the horse has left the stable and the stable is no longer theirs. And that setting is about to be set in a real live testing. The two games where things cannot go wrong for Ubisoft is AC Valhalla and Watchdogs: Legion. If either goes wrong the larger downfall stage for Ubisoft will be set. 

As I personally see it, they seemingly just will not learn, the last time they got it right was 2017, and I believe the they are at present out of options. As their marketing hands us story after story, leak after leak, they are sailing from the setting they need to be in (and perhaps behind the screens they are), and I hope they are, but the first hurdle is 40 days away and they better not miss a beat. 

So how does this touch on Saudi Arabia?

We see marketing via the media and newspapers, anti Saudi Arabia and the silence towards Iran. First things first, Saudi Arabia now has the initial setting of full 5G completed. No matter that this is Huawei, there is a stage where China now has options to open talks on all kinds of matters. Pompeo gave us via newspapers that they are using seduction and nuclear weapons, but that might merely be a second stage. Even as Huawei is opening technology, China does have the option to open up towards larger weapons contract, destabilising US interests in the middle east. All whilst Saudi Arabia with a functioning 5G becomes a testing ground for 5G, allowing Saudi engineers to create a larger benefit, optionally setting up new apps, all tested and ready to be deployed outside of Saudi Arabia. it is merely the setting on the side and the people opposing this are the ones who are afraid to lose too much coins.

Now, I am really willing to accept that it is all in my mind, but the setting stages of media marketing and media exploitation is getting out of control and that is what we now see, we see marketing driven media out of control yet the people who need to see what is going on are ignoring it. And the weird part is that it is happening to Ubisoft and it is happening to Saudi Arabia, two seemingly unrelated pawns in a much larger game, yet is it a real larger game, or one that is merely in my mind? Ignoring this is wrong, it is the same stage that these conspiracy theories have (I am always right, I am the only one who sees this). I try to back all the things I see with other links and verified news, Yet that does not stop a person to see what that person believes, but it does not mean that it does not exist. It is a larger stage of data versus insight. One cannot compare apples to pears.

So even as I see the marketing and media frenzy, I see both elements as separate ones, these two players are merely hit in a similar way. Consider the pro Saudi News, the one relating to Neom city, so a 500 billion dollar investment and we see in Google 21,000 hits? Whilst we see 54 million negative mentions towards Saudi Arabia. Does that not strike you all as weird? Now, I am not stating that Saudi Arabia is innocent, that it has no issues, but the world (pretty much all of it) tends to go coo-coo where money is concerned, and $500,000,000,000 is a lot of money. It inspired me to make four parts of my IP. And let’s be fair, out of $500 billion, even a 0.1% is well worth anyones time (I am hoping for a mere 1% and I am willing to end with only 10% of that), so as we set that trickle, do you think that the players like Google and Apple are not ready to jump in at similar settings at a moments notice? You have got to be kidding, but the media remains silent, 21,000 hits on Neom city? Are you for real? The same can be seen in light of Ubisoft, 6.5M, yet only 1.5M when it comes to Ubisoft and PS5, a lot more mind you, but there is a stage where they seemingly overlap in treatment by the media and that is what I saw. I feel justified in what I see and I feel justified in bringing it to light. Even as a lot will agree that Ubisoft has coming what it asked for, there is a larger stage which is completely absent of fair dinkum (an Australian expression meaning fair play) and I have an issue with that, just like the never ending anti-Saudi news. I saw a right wing poll with the question “Single Greatest contributing factor behind decline of UK”, from the 3237 votes, 72% voted that Islam was the reason, a stage that together with the anti-Saudi waves has become unacceptable, yet all these governments making anti-discrimination claims are massively incapable to do anything.

We are turning several corners at the same time and I for one am completely ignorant on what might be a solution. I merely wonder if we are returning to the age of the crusades, christians against Muslims and I for one had hoped that we had learned our lesson by now.

So if you think it is in my mind, fine, I get it. However, the Google Searches, the news items, they all seemingly prove me right. And this is all before we take a notice of the growing amount of anti-Islam and anti-semitism all over the western world. Is it all truly in my mind? It is (as I personally see it) not a stage that is merely in my mind, it is a growing stage and it is out there and we can no longer continue on the path that we are.

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September 30, 2020 · 14:56

Another furlong (to the race)

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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September 29, 2020 · 14:37

Lack of information

As I was browsing along, I saw a picture with the text ‘Why are we so misinformed?’, I did not read the article, but the question struck home. You see, we tend to ask questions when we need them, information tends to stop commercial traffic and getting justly informed is very very bad for commerce.

To comprehend this we need to take a look at the telecom drivers. In 2018 I needed a new phone, my Huawei P7 was on its final legs after 3 years and there would soon be no more updates, because that is how Android tends to work. More important, when your phone is 2 full versions behind, the setting is there to upgrade quickly or face other consequences. In this setting I was looking for an affordable phone the had 64GB Storage. You see, the current phone had 16GB and even as it was a massive upgrade from the previous one (with only 4GB), time would tell that 32GB would not do it and I was almost right. So I set out to look for a larger phone and would you know it, Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, none of them had ANYTHING that I could use, they merely had the models to keep the now people happy, but the tomorrow people would suffer. It is now 2020 and I am using a little over 34GB, as such what they had then would no longer suffice and that is AFTER I deleted Facebook, and I never use WhatsApp, Instagram or Pinterest, so the damage could be worse. The other phones were great contract captivators and to set a long term need some see the path of a little above board to hand the people what they think they need, not what they actually need, that is my translation and mobile phones are in a rough setting. Now the iPhone 11 will offer enough, as do some of the previous models, but $1800 is a little much for a lot of people, so there we are in a bit of a fix, for me it was fortunate that the Huawei Nova 3i offered what I needed, but I found it because I was looking intensely, not because people were informing me. Also, there was a Samsung 64GB, but none of the phone shops had it at the time, merely the 32GB. The addictive need of connection is seemingly required. It does not stop at mobile phones. The media has been protective of its advertisers and advertising opportunities since well before 2012, when I alerted them to a situation that would optionally bring pressure to millions of gamers, the news outlets ignored it, there were screenshots and there was evidence, but for them it mattered no, as I personally see it, the advertisement needs of Sony went first. 

As such, was there a lack of information, or were people optionally intentionally not looking in specific directions? I will let you be the judge of that, yet consider that even as mobile phones are the most visible ones, they are not the only ones and we will know in 7 weeks whether my setting (given yesterday) is a path that was exploited correctly. You see, how many news outlets, all crying and boasting US BS, on how far 5G is? When we look (at https://www.rcrwireless.com/20200911/5g/zain-completes-5g-network-deployment-saudi-arabia) and we see that Saudi Arabia finished the rollout of 5G to 38 cities, we see that we all are second to a Middle Eastern nation that embraced the 5G challenge rolling it out pretty much nationally. Scandinavia, Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, none of them are anywhere near that stage for at least a year, optionally 2 years. So what are we proud of? When we see a lack of information it also includes the screw ups that our political and business big wigs signed up for. So when we see Europe and in this case Ireland boasting “at launch it has about 35 per cent population coverage, but that will increase with the addition of 500 sites next year”, we see that they are not ready yet, they are a year away, and that whilst Saudi Arabia is 31 times bigger than Ireland and it was completed 2 weeks ago. Ireland is seemingly more ahead than anyone else in Europe and there is the kicker. You can only develop true 5G apps when the nation is ready and for the most none of them are, so when we see a lack of information, it is also because the information bringers have nothing to be proud of, and most importantly, no evidence against Huawei was ever brought, merely old farts in the intelligence community, all with links to others (big business) who are missing out and those people are really really sad (a lack of funds will do that).

So whilst I am applauding the question ‘Why are we so misinformed?’, we need to consider ‘What are we not allowed to know?’, a setting that favoured Sony in 2012, Microsoft multiple time and we can go in several directions when it is about 5G.

Have fun!

 

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September 28, 2020 · 00:33

Exit stage right

Yup, I am back. In the first there is the Swiss issue I discussed earlier today, as set the free movement ending is not reached, 68% rejected that part. So in this the larger stage were (as I personally saw it) the fear mongering side, but that is merely my view on one part. The election was on a few items and the Swiss have spoken, they rejected the ending free movement part and I am fine with it, yet I do feel that the term of all those benefits, I wonder if we ever get to see a list on that. But no matter what it was up to the Swiss and they rejected the notion.

Then there is the corona issue (not the beer), as per now we have 33 million infected and one million are dead. I believe that this number is actually higher, but I cannot prove it, the top three are USA, India and Brazil. In this I partially reject it because I believe that Indian infected is most likely a lot higher and those who died are cremated rather fast, so even as the numbers are too low, I cannot say that there is intent here, consider that in India the alleged personal need for ignorance is high, a nation where the Mumbai region alone has 55 million people, so 6 million over all India and only 95,000 deaths does not add up. When we apply the global mortality rate, the death count in India is close to 50% too low, a nation where population pressure is through the roof. I get it, not every person gets tested, there are not enough test packages to get even close to the testings required, there is no blame, no one is at fault, but we need to realise the setting and in a lot more places than India, the setting does not add up. 

And in the third setting, we see that there is every indication that President Trump will be exiting the stage on the right side. There is an overwhelming amount of push on places like Twitter where we see the Rock, George Takei, Billy Baldwin, David Cross and numerous others are giving their voice to Joe Biden, there is even a growing amount of Republicans on that list (including me) and the stage that President Trump has set is for the bulk of all the people no longer acceptable. I reckon that if the voting amount is raised from 55% to 65% it will be over for President Trump. As far as I can tell, at no time in history have Americans united against an elected president ever before. These events are making the anti Vietnam and anti Lyndon B. Johnson events fade. Even as Joe Biden has presently a 10% lead, it is a dangerous setting. Some people will fall asleep and will not bother voting, but the is the danger that got President Trump into the Oval Office in the first place. I would hazard a guess that if only 65% votes, one could argue that the USA does not deserve saving, not t this stage. The active people seem to realise that and their voice is simple “please vote”, they do not say who to vote for, they seem to think that this will be enough to get them to vote and hopefully not for President Trump. People like Dwayne Johnson are more eloquent in this, they name the people they endorse and give additional information. Still, I am to some extent in awe, I have never seen such a level of unison coming from America since WW2 (the Hitler is bad group) and perhaps it is important to pause at this notion. Yes, I remember my last piece, yet that was not about being pro-Trump. That was about the law and the constitution, little pesky things all kind of people want to avoid, I do not. 

What else is on the table? 

Well, games would be my guess and even as we are all still reeling from the Bethesda, now Microsoft decision, PC Gamer gives us a past overview (at https://www.pcgamer.com/au/what-happened-to-12-of-gamings-biggest-studios-after-they-were-sold/). I understand what they bring and I do not oppose it, but what stands out is that Bethesda is bought for more than the amount spend on 12 other acquisitions (not all Microsoft), there we see the the purchase of Mojang by Microsoft implies that all is not lost for Sony, yet this close to release of a new console makes it a question mark at best. In this there is also the thought that EA has options for Mass Effect and even the original trilogy, yet that is for another time. For the most the countdown clocks are running for Cyberpunk 2077 and the PS5/Xbox series X. November 19th 2020 for Cyberpunk and the consoles will come at November 12th (PS5) and November 10th (Xbox). The mayhem starts in 43 days 6 hours and 34.2 minutes.

 

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September 23, 2020 · 21:58

The power of push

Yup, push is by far the greatest power in levelling the playing field. So when I heard that Bethesda had joined the Microsoft farm. From a tactical point of view, it was a brilliant move, the research a few weeks ago showed that merely 1 in three would select a Microsoft system, 1 in 3 is set to 3 in 9, but now there is every chance that the purchase might give Microsoft a shift towards 4-5 in 9, this is an important shift. We might see that it is a shift that cannot be avoided, but I see it as the opportunity to add to the power of Sony. You see, every RPG game is the same, there is land and there is a story, but what happens when we change that? What happens when the map is not defined by the story? What happens when we set it in two different dimensions? So what happens when the story has a localisation part? What if the map is wherever we need it to be, and we add the story on top? What if we can add the story to the map wherever it is? There is off course the need to transfer the map of the world into a playable map (which is not initially possible), yet the segregation of the two is a first step in a much larger frame, a frame that RPG games have not considered in the past. Yet it is only one of two parts, the second part is the revitalisation of the maps we play on. Yet what happens when the actions of a first game transfer to the second game? I am not talking about merely a change to an area because of actions (Fable), but the stage where the castle we add in the first game will be there in the second game as an existing location. At present, games are designed retroactively to avoid issues (Harry Potter), yet what options come alive when we embrace them? I thought in the direction before, but not to this degree. So consider the stage in a land, as we play the first game we offer quests we offer choices and so forth, but what happens that even beyond what we see in Mass Effect, the impact is not merely people, what happens, when we add and destroy locations, so the second game has the added/removed parts? We have seen shadows of this in games, but not to this extent, it is a larger stage of the accountability of the player. We accept that some will choose to only add locations, but in all this we forget that any RPG can have two sides, so what happens to the power core of any land, when there is no destruction? Bethesda did that quite nicely to leave us the options to save or destroy Megaton, but the is merely a fraction of what is possible, in that game the trade routes and the surrounding locations were not impacting by a shifted economy. So what happens when (in Fallout 4) the vaults become power villages? Each with an economy? That was in the back of my mind as I was looking at the Ultima setting, but that game is not alone. Yet there is no good example, because it has never been done to this degree before and it opens up all kinds of new settings and options in RPG gaming. 

In all this we need to thank Bethesda, no matter what reasons they had (the number 7,500,000,000) is a pretty nice reason, the station is now a larger setting, all kinds of needs to see a larger RPG change and even as Microsoft has the lead with its (as some say) 23 first person studio’s, it was a guy like me on a sofa who came up with the idea that no one ever brought to a game, not to this degree and that is where 23 studio’s came up short and Sony has the option to make a change to gaming, a larger change and that is what they have always done, I wonder how they will do it this time. I hope that we get to teach Microsoft another lesson, they have already been inclined to the fact that not listening to their gamers comes at a cost (only 1 out of 3 decided to buy the next Xbox), but there is every chance they get to learn that money does not solve everything, if you do not have the grasp of those who can create, you have nothing.

The power of push tends to hand a lending hand, but this time not to Microsoft.

 

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September 22, 2020 · 03:16

The house of RPG

Yup, the news only just hit the walls of the internet and a new stage is already underway. This is not about slamming Bethesda, they made a decision and I reckon that 7 billion plus is a nice looking bandaid, but now the house is falling over, because the stage of gaming is set into another realm. Do you think that Sony will like the age of dependancy of Microsoft? So as Bethesda becomes a Microsoft institution, Sony will have to look in other directions. Yes there are good RPG’s out there. There is the Witcher and Cyberpunk is about to arrive, yet the stage is largely untapped and now we see that there is a larger need for an exclusive option for Sony. Lucky for them there might be an option. Richard Garriott created the Ultima series in the early 80’s, yet it was in 1985 that Ultima IV: Quest of the avatar was born. It would take RPG’s to new heights, heights that would not be equalled for well over a decade. Now consider a first person RPG (like Skyrim) with its own rules, its own places, and a storyline that can surpass most RPG games out there. On a map that would be close to 6,000% larger than Skyrim. The map of Britannia (Ultima 1-9) was almost completely designed by the time Ultima 4 was there and the game only got better. The stage would add new dimensions to RPG gaming, something that could be done again in a 1st person setting. It would add new directions in gaming from the original setting, something that had not been done for some time. And then there is the story. Even now I see new stages in shrines and stones that the original never allowed for. There is the stage to combine Ultima 4 and 5 in a much larger setting in sequence in one game. It implies a gaming size that surpasses most RPG’s in hours and way the game is played. The Ultima series set a larger stage with the use of ships and that could remain, so there would be more in the game and more challenges. The largest is to stay original to the Ultima formula and not be swayed towards more of the same. A game that becomes a journey, a journey that we have not seen before and in this Bethesda opened the door by becoming part of Microsoft. I hope that they will remain on the Sony systems, but there is every indication that Microsoft will take a time advantage and use Bethesda games to push people towards their console. That move makes sense because there are plenty of Elder Scrolls and Fallout fans, but that also means that Sony now has the task to protect its core gamers by offering an exclusive brand of their own and that is where we see the value of Richard Garriott optionally go through the roof. I believe that for Richard Microsoft buying Bethesda might seem like the opportunity of a lifetime. No matter how Bethesda phrases it, they are quoted to have stated “all future Bethesda games will release on both Xbox and PC, but their appearance on other consoles will be determined on a “game by game basis”” this is what I would call a dicey setting for Sony, but not all is lost, they could look towards what was and redesign it to the new. Ultima is one of the most likely franchises and the stage is much larger than you think. Microsoft has paid over $7 billion for Bethesda (actually they bought Zenimax Media, the parent of Bethesda), it is a clever move, but if Sony counters it with new RPG, that price might be a little sour, especially if the RPG marketshare brittles away from Bethesda. Microsoft ends up in a stage where the overpaid for a brand that is well worth it, but as Sony counters what was not set to value, the value of Zenimax media will take a bit of a dive. So not only is there an alternative, my mind has already seen the optional design for an adjusted RPG game that would be every bit as satisfying as the original, more so when you consider that the original was never first person, but in my mind I added a stage that the Elder Scrolls never possessed. It is not merely good news for Richard Garriott, it would also be great news for Iolo, Jaana, Julia, Dupre, Geoffrey, Mariah, Katrina and Shamino. They can dust off the weapons they hung up in 1992. And the world would optionally see them back into action as early as 2022 if Sony gets a deal with Richard Garriott sober rather than later, because Microsoft was sly in getting the deal, but was it a clever move? I am not so sure about that. If we are to believe some market research results, only one in three opted for Microsoft, the rest went the way of Sony. I had issues with the results as it was against two systems and Nintendo was left outside the choice, I believe that the Microsoft numbers are not that great to begin with, but that is pure speculation from my side. Will I be proven correctly? 

I actually do not know, but the Bethesda move has set a level of shock on me, that is true enough, yet I have made up my mind, I will not get the Xbox, and if that leaves me without future fallout and elder scrolls games, so be it, yet it took me no more than an hour to set an optional new stage of Ultima, so there is always an option, there will always be RPG, the question becomes will Bethesda be part of that? I actually do not know, there is too much unknown at present.

 

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September 21, 2020 · 01:54

Sto what? It’s the Rage that we get to see

Yup, IGN gives us ‘PS5 File Sizes Revealed for Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls’, which is not really that much of a surprise, yet there is a part that was a surprise “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Launch Edition will require at least 50 GB, while the Ultimate Launch Edition will need at least 105 GB of space as it also includes a remastered version of 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man”, so even as IGN gives us that there is more gaming with Miles Morales, the stage that the game is that extra is a nice surprise for the PlayStation people. Yet the issue is the storage, I saw this issue coming a long time ago, basically, storage issues were on my radar since 2012, when Microsoft was a lot less eager to listen to its users. In the stage now, we see that Microsoft is finally listening, we see the stage the I foresaw in the Xbox One series X, 4K gaming requires storage and a lot of it. Now both systems will have space for an additional SSD, so there should be more than enough storage when the additional drive is installed. There is however the newness of the NVMe SSD. Even as the 2TB drives are not cheap ($368), it is the 4TB (at $1199) where the price tends to really matter. Now the are generic NVMe SSD, as the PS5 one is less generic, even faster and currently not available, the stage is coming to larger upgrades and there is no doubt that Microsoft has its own version. 

So even as we need to take to heart the message that IGN gives us, we also need to consider that there is a real setback for those relying on the digital edition versions of either console. When we consider that the PS5 dic holds 100GB, and when we also consider that the games are 50GB or larger, consider the patches that you have to download, and consider the download of any new patch, and people are surprised that I am a DISC fanatic? 

You see, before 5G is completely deployed (For Sydney that is the time of now until somewhere 2022), consider the no less than 175.000 systems (Microsoft and Sony), and the setting that the bulk will need to download 50GB optionally more than once a week. Congestion is the only path that remains. Consider that normal usage during the lockdown forced YouTube and Netflix to downgrade their streams, Netflix would not show 4K movies (as I understood), so what do you think that all the downloads of games and patches will accomplish? 

And in all this, the fact that until the systems have enough storage, games might have to be downloaded more than once, we see more congestion and IGN gives us that 2 games amount to 20%, so now add Skyrim, Fallout 4, the new TES game and the new Fallout game and this list will go on for a while, so on both systems we are likely to see 99.3% filled drives, implying the until the additional drive is installed, more games need to be installed multiple times and it will add to congestion. Now consider the stage in the UK, London, where we see 6 million people and there is every chance that there will be a little over a million nextgen consoles in London (both Sony and Microsoft), so how much congestion will they face? Consider that the lockdown will continue in the UK, a console might be the only relief that a lot will see and in all this, they will be screaming congestion next to YouTube and Netflix, did no one catch on?

It is the simplest of settings and we will see congestion all over the EU, the US, and most Commonwealth nations. So when we realise that last March we got “Sony Will Throttle US Game Download Speeds to Help Ease Internet Congestion”, how do you think it all goes when two companies launches their nextgen consoles on a global scale? When we consider that the new games are at least 20% larger and millions will take the ‘cheaper’ edition that is digital only, do you have any idea the level of congestion we will face? It will go down somewhat AFTER we get the additional drive, but for some that might be a year away, and now we will see a group of people relying on the digital edition, so no drives, that sets the stage to millions with downloads only, I wonder how many people have the bandwidth to deal with the console needs, because at $10 per GB, that bill will add up really fast. 

In the end people will trivialise their digital needs, but in about 8 weeks the first groups will set the threshold on an international stage and the news will suddenly be about how gamers use all the bandwidth, they will suddenly be the bad guys. Yet the stage we see now is all about a digital shift the the business world is not ready for and the vilification of Huawei is not helping, but I reckon that we will see the impact during the holiday season of 2020, the final numbest is unknown, because the total sold systems from Sony and Microsoft will not be clear in the initial setting, they are both part of the issue, this is nothing against either, this is the future of gaming and this will be the first time when the internet not the system will be the bottleneck, it is a new situation for all of us.

 

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September 17, 2020 · 07:31

Behold the truth on a console

It was a setting my mind went into when I was looking at the PS5 presentation at 06:00. It suddenly hit me, a new IP, one that has never been done before. So what if the game is not a game, what it is a story about the truth. A setting where we get to be different people, unlocking christian history. The early days, the treaty of Claremont, the Malleus Malificarus, the Ghibellines papers, the list is near endless and for the most, Christians are unaware on a lot of this. Let’s face it, when was the last time you got the truth served as a game (well, sort of a game anyway). Walking through the Vatican, unlocking art, unlocking the history of artists. A setting of papers, paintings and sculptures. In all this, did the Vatican Apostolic Archives ever considered that their in-house digitisation project would be a stage of informing the people? Even as they attempted to both make the documents more available to researchers, so why only researchers?  Why not inform us all? And in this way preserving ageing physical documents will be preserved all over the world. In this way we can serve up the history of religion in many ways, on many grounds and in a playful way. I remember (when I was young) getting late to a sermon. I asked the man sitting next to me ‘How long has he been speaking’, the answer was ‘about half an hour’, when I asked him what it was about, I got ‘He hasn’t told us yet’. 

You might laugh, but if we look at this neutrally, when was the last time we got the real goods on what happened? Who has ever liked at the treaty of Claremont? When we see “Pope Urban’s speech on November 27 included the call to arms that would result in the First Crusade, and eventually the capture of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In this, Urban reacted to the request by Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus who had sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks”, I wonder how many people had any clue on what the crusades were about. It was about greed, not religion (well less about religion). The movie Kingdom of Heaven (by Ridley Scott) touches on it, but for those with a larger interest in RPG and not killing things (optionally not killing things) we could have an option. There is of course the option, that you unlock a character that can actually go into Jerusalem, it is an idea. I just got the idea less than an hour ago, so it is still evolving in my mind, even whilst I am writing this. If the Vatican wants to reach the youth of today, the 5 consoles embrace close to 638,000,000 people, as such, is it such a bad idea?

And it is not merely about the documents and the Vatican, if you are not French, there is a decent hand the you are not aware of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims, so why not? There are a whole range of churches and cathedral who have had a larger push in nations and I think the it is time to give the people the low down on these places. 

Is it a crazy idea? Yup, I will be the first one to admit that, is it a bad idea? There are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, there are 638 million console gamers, there is a really good chance that these groups overlap. Skyrim is one of the most successful games ever made and it only has 20 million copies, when you see the other two numbers, does it make sense to take that walk? I believe it does and there is every chance that this game could make it on all of the 5 consoles, optionally PC and MAC too. 

So will we behold the truth or merely bash the ‘x’ button on Devil may Cry 5? Well the is up to you to decide, but consider Minecraft, everyone laughed initially, yet now there are well over 100 million people playing that game (most on PC), so whilst this idea is bouncing in my head, I will consider ordering my PS5 and I await a shop calling me back with the explanation what I have been waiting for my iPad since May, and it better come with more than a ‘there is a new model arriving in 2 weeks’.

Hasta Lasagna and Auf Wiener Schnitzel!

 

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