Tag Archives: Star Citizen

May 31, 2019 · 13:18

Just like TV

There will be a discussion soon enough whether TV gave the idea to fund extremism and terrorism. I am referring to Blacklist, an episode from season 3 called “Arioch Cain“. In this episode someone decides to use crowdsourcing to get the main character Elizabeth Keen assassinated and soon enough, through crowdsourcing a price of over $700,000 is on her head. That amount tends to attract all kinds of enthusiasts, especially as hardware relying on ammunition in the US is dirt cheap.

This gets us to two articles in the independent ‘British far-right extremists being funded by international networks, report reveals‘ less than an hour ago (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/far-right-extremism-terrorism-tommy-robinson-funding-international-a8937116.html), as well as ‘How crowd funding helps far-right extremism spread round the world‘ also less than an hour ago, but the same writer no less (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/far-right-extremism-crowdfunding-tommy-robinson-a8937311.html). The entire setting is not unexpected. I foresaw this to some extent in 2013 when I reported a certain stage where Facebook games had their own chat rooms and some chat rooms started to change languages. Now, I have no idea what was discussed, or even that anything nefarious was discussed, but the fact that some of these chat groups were private and the fact that they were close to 99% certain not monitored would give certain kind of people options, the fact that one could fund another through pay pal was a second stage in all this. The consideration that the episode was aired almost 4 years ago is also a factor, in 4 years people try alternatives and both the extremist as well as the terrorist population are always willing to try something that cannot really be monitored, so there.

The first article gives us: “Analysts at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) found that despite an increase in extreme right-wing attacks, efforts to disrupt terrorist financing were still focused on Islamists.

A report said a lack of work to find the source of money flows and stop them had allowed prolific extremists and groups to build huge platforms in the UK, US and Europe” as well as “the funds gathered allowed fringe groups to expand their reach with potentially deadly effect” cannot be ignored, and here we have the intersection. although let’s be clear I was looking at one source for very different reasons, I am now quoting: “I have had to clean up the mess of others for well over a decade and now it is time to give those people the exposure they deserve (my findings regarding Credit Agricole will have to wait for a few more days)“, Which I wrote in ‘The Scott Pilgrim of Technology‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/23/the-scott-pilgrim-of-technology/), it is indirectly linked as Rusi (at https://rusi.org/sites/default/files/201606_whr_3_16_countering_proliferation_finance_v2_0.pdf) gives us “Several other banks have faced smaller fines by US regulators for similar offences, ranging in the hundreds of millions of dollars; they include HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, Barclays and Crédit Agricole.”

I was looking deeper into Omani credit notes which were handed to Iran for goods, but at the current oil prices (the price then) the numbers were not adding up, it was like looking at 10 tankers being paid forward, or someone sold oil at $230 a barrel, which seems even less likely and at trade prices there is no tanker large enough to facilitate the oil. As I was aware and familiar with bills of lading, parts did not add up and I decided to dig deeper, only to find that I had forgotten to save the links and that virtual location was suddenly gone the next morning (that will teach ME being stupid). Somehow one of the links seemingly implied Credit Agricole (a non verifiable number) and that is where I was last week, now I see the Rusi paper and I wonder what their servers could teach me. It was by the way not a new issue for me, I looked into parts of this in June 2018 when I wrote: ‘The Iranian funds play‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/06/07/the-iranian-funds-play/).

The paper also gives us on page 13: “Financial institutions rely on governments to be explicit about their expectations and to provide guidance on how best to meet these expectations“, which is not really realistic when they rely on ambiguity, but the setting is fair and as such we also see the failed setting to deal with extreme right players. I personally believe that when we consider: “FIs are thus faced with a dilemma, in that many wish to meet US expectations in order to avoid penalties, but do not enjoy advice or assistance from their home governments to enable them to direct their efforts appropriately. Most are largely left to determine on their own how to address risks associated with CPF or related sanctions, other than simply screening against UN sanctions lists“, I believe that some of the players considered the benefit of using players like Oman to set the stage of both deniability and facilitation via a fourth person (as the bank was the third piggie in the middle), they get none of the heat and all of the bonus that way. I believed that some French players found an optional resolution to keep their vineyards safe and well-funded. It works for me; I would love to retire in the Cognac area making my own grape juice ambrosia (aka: Jus de raisin maison). The fact that this is all about billions in the other setting, my 1% slice would look super dandy. In case of the Lizzie Dearden articles, we see that the anonymity allows those who shun the limelight to make an ‘effort’ to keep imbalance through extremism, or what some call the Tommy Robinson political resolution, The article gives us: “white nationalists Generation Identity and neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action among the British actors profiting from “international connectivity”“, do you really think that it is limited to that group? All those white collar board members who cannot be seen with their fingers in the cookie jar have no qualms about buying a bakery, so that they can have the jar at any given moment. At that point yesterday’s article also gets another dimension, when big players need to rely on consultants with a given for fear mongering, how did the media ignore that? Examples are abound, for example articles that rely on ‘should’ 9 times and “The primary danger is the repeat of the fears that many investors had to face in 2018” and the entire paragraph is in the article twice. It is ways like that fear is brought and reinforced, when this is done, there is no trail, no conversation and in the end the crowdsourcing methods are the best to keep it all anonymous. It matters, because the intelligent extreme right player works not through shouting, but through reinforcement of the argument, they aren’t all stupid!

When Rusi looks at Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) we get that: “he had profited from both significant support from foreign donors and crowdfunding from individual donors around the world” this does not come through shouting, it comes from enforcing fears and give examples that are current, does that sound familiar?

Do you think that a Philadelphia-based think tank spends £48,000 on silly shouters? Do you think that the quote: “Robinson was also a beneficiary of a “fellowship” from US tech billionaire Robert Shillman that bolstered his salary from Canadian website Rebel Media, where he worked from early 2017 until February last year” is unique? People like Robert Shillman are rich enough not to care, they are too rich and their view is often accepted because they are super wealthy, so they are regarded as successful, but there are dozens who still fear the limelight and crowdsourcing is a solution to fund many others (far right or far left) with an optional handle on extremism, Lizzie Dearden gives a good view on it. There is one part I do not agree with, even as nothing Keatinge writes is wrong. When I see: “crowdfunding allows extremists to build international platforms that spread hate to wider audiences“. I can tell that he is not wrong, but overlooks the optional larger issue. It is not spreading hate, it is illuminating through half-baked examples that the current solutions are not working. It is not the hate part, but the ‘your kid does not have a job, because an immigrant was overly happy to accept that job at minimum pay‘ that is what sells the larger imbalance. Ignoring the truth that every boss tries to cut costs any way they can, as they are misaligning the cost of doing business, we see that an entire generation is pushed to minimum income, even those with good degrees, add to that age discrimination and we suddenly see a shift that is much larger, it is not promoting hate, but caressing the frustrations of the working class that is much stronger and a larger growth concern. Most do not react to hate, but we will respond to the frustrations that they are hit with every day, that is the part Rusi missed (or so it seems).

There is also an issue with: “Crowdfunding is a vulnerability in the system, it’s a way the internet presents funding opportunities that have not previously been conceived” the issue is not that it is an option, it is that this ‘solution’ has been around for 20 years and no one took a hard look at the options that crowdfunding offered until it was too late. Even as we all seem to focus on Star Citizen (2015) that raised $77 million, the fact that the idea goes back to Auguste Comte (1850) gives rise to more issues. The internet might have made the idea global, but there was a larger issue for the longest of time and the fact that we see a project 4 years ago amass $77 million gives rise to larger concerns. Especially in light of lone wolf dangers that have been around a decade earlier. so even as we see the recognition through: “Senior law enforcement practitioners have suggested that non-violent extremism is often the first step in a process of radicalisation that ends in terrorism, which is why financial analysis into nonviolent extremism should not be overlooked“, the very notion of the text in the Rusi paper on page 17: “The only indicator that appears to be specific to proliferation financing risks relates to whether shipped goods are incompatible with the technical capabilities of the destination country. This highlights a third problem, which is that in order to be able to gain this understanding, an FI would need to: understand the precise technical nature of the item and its potential applications (information that may not be available with sufficient specificity); assess the industrial state of the destination country, including its possible nearterm expansion“, you might recognise two problems. The first is that ‘shipped goods‘ becomes a larger issue when they are spare parts. Consider that some caterpillar crane parts are strong and massive enough to create a stable multi scud launcher, more so when assembly and disassembly could be achieved in under an hour. What is Israel going to do? Bomb a crane? When you realise that the issue grows tenfold with electronics, some might see on how far crowdsourcing could finance a network in Europe and as this danger has been largely accepted since as early as 2012, the entire lack of activity in this realm of non-monitoring makes even less sense. The second part is ‘potential application‘, how many people look at a Caterpillar of Hitachi Crawler crane and considers the spare parts to be the foundation of an optional Scud launching solution? Let’s face it there is no flag that would be raised regarding a construction firm receiving spare parts for their crane.

Now we understand that Rusi made a paper that focusses on the issue, and there is nothing wrong with the paper, it is actually excellent. My issue remains and on page 20 we get the good stuff: “All FIs interviewed for this study said their institutions employed sanctions-screening software to check incoming and outgoing transactions against UN-designated entities, and all were doing so prior to the advent of FATF Recommendation 7.” when we get the ‘UN-designated entities‘ and not the check of facilitators, we see a large delay (in case issues are found), and we get a problem when the situation is not the designations, but the fact that both sides have a middleman and these people talk to the match makers, so we now have a party of five with a Chinese wall in place and the stage where more likely than not, the three in the middle are not on any list, especially the matchmaker, who uses a range of ‘middle man’ for each idea with each transaction, when the transactions become fragmented the chance of not revealed becomes a lot more likely than not and crowdsourcing enables this to a much larger degree, add to this the dark web and bitcoin and we get a mess we cannot decipher. If the facilitators go to the tax office and give them ‘I had a one off consultancy job for a year‘ and pay their taxation on time, it all goes into the IT revenue taxed and not one pig will be squealing, not even as it gets roasted whilst the ‘consultant’ brought home the bacon.

They merely need to consider the office location so that it aligns with: ‘due to the lack of legislation in some jurisdictions to allow an institution to support an asset freeze‘ and the solution is there. And that is when the amount is large enough, when it is smaller, almost never ever true action will be taken, the extremists, political or other can use that system any way it jingles to the beat they needed to hear.

It is a case of musical chairs where the rewards for some really stack up, just like on TV.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 5, 2015 · 22:30

A citizen of the stars

There is a game in development, the title is ‘Star Citizen‘, I am unlikely to play it at present as I am a console player and I do not have the PC needed for decent gaming. Yet, I have always had a good view on games and gaming. As the news on this game is getting hyped in a weird way, it is time for me to step in and let me give you, the people (the readers) a view that matters.

First of all, my initial exposure to the game Star Citizen was about 4-5 months ago. The game seemed decent in a graphical way. It showed to be buggy as hell (read glitched), but in itself that is not a fair assessment. You see, the game was still in development, it was not even an Alpha version. I kept that in mind as I was looking at what I call to be, a product that is not in a reviewable position. The first view you must take comes from Bluedrake42 (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0pqkf8WXPE).

You need to see this to the end, because there are a few views that matter. Like him I understand game development. He goes on about Cry engine versus Unreal engine. I stand in the middle, yet his view ‘they made massive progress‘ and ‘they are close to making a decent finished product‘. This is a view from October 4th 2015 (yes, World Animal Day). He then compares towards Elite Dangerous and No Mans Sky. His view: ‘it will be good in its own right‘, which is a fair assessment. He moves towards the issue of the expectations of the people. I personally think that he is trying to address the hyped expectations of an emotionally pushed audience, which is not the same. That is the part we cannot win, because it is an illusionary view that is not in league to the things that matter here.

So what to think of the views, the scandals and the illusion of the funded crowds.

For that we need to take a view on Forbes (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/10/04/star-citizen-developer-threatens-lawsuit-against-the-escapist-demands-apology-and-retraction/). It refers to the escapists issues that seems to be an issue on several levels. When we step back, there is an issue on communication and project management. When we take a step back we can see that there is an issue. The question becomes, do we keep on building or do we finish a part and then move on? David Braben opted for solution 2 with Elite Dangerous, which does not invalidate option one. I am not having a go at Chris Roberts or at Cloud Imperium Games. Why should I? I play on consoles and I am happy that universe based games are growing. You see, with Star Citizen around, both No Mans Sky and Elite Dangerous will up their game to make that game an even better game and I the gamer will win, you the gamer will win too.

So what is this about the escapist?

The following quote matters: “Star Citizen is an ambitious space simulation title from industry veteran Chris Roberts. The game began as a passion project, drawing inspiration from Wing Commander and Freelancer. Star Citizen promised a triumphant return to the space-sim genre by combining a huge universe with multiple gameplay options, a massive variety of ships, and no subscription fees“, this sounds interesting and it seems a little like Elite Dangerous. That part matters when we consider the next two quotes on the article “It’s never been done because it can’t be done. – Several sources” and “The popular consensus among most of the people who reached out is that Chris Roberts is not intentionally a con man; “He doesn’t set out in the morning to screw anybody over. He’s just incredibly arrogant,” CS2 stated“.

Now to take a look at the previous two quotes. You see ‘it cannot be done‘ is the first part we can burn down. Not only is Elite dangerous doing what Star Citizen is achieving (when you include Elite Dangerous Horizons), the parts that were promised can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ccKp1n13jQ. Which shows things that Elite Dangerous cannot deliver at present. In addition, what the movie shows is pretty amazing. Star Citizen shows an overwhelming approach Elite could not do when it was initially made (48Kb is not enough resources). Elite Dangerous is trying to get close what the current video is delivering. I will not step away from Elite Dangerous, but what the movies show makes me want to have a decent gaming PC.

It is the second part that is now an immediate concern, which is “consensus among most of the people who reached out is that Chris Roberts is not intentionally a con man“, so is this about defamation? ‘Most of the people who reached out‘ is an issue now. You see, the game has been in development for 3 years. This is no longer a mere simple space game. The FPS part of the game is like an upgraded version of Mass Effect in first person view. Better stated it is a very much upgraded version of Half-Life in space. So yes the game is still in development, it is in an Alpha version and it shows elements of Elite Dangerous, elements of Half-Life and elements of Mass Effect.

Have things been overpromised? It is hard to tell; when I consider the progress that I have seen over 4 months, that part is massive. An open sandbox of the universe which could be seen as a true open space MMO is pretty amazing. In opposition the allegations against the team and more important Chris Roberts is pretty far out there. Especially when we consider the growth, the evolution and what seems to be working at this very moment is just too overwhelming. So why is there a growing anti-Star citizen here?

It is a crowd funded game. The fact it drew in well over 80 million is a little big, but the game is growing towards the levels we are not used to see. At this point, the alpha looked better and more stable than Assassins Creed Unity did after it was released. So why the anti-CIG mode? There are all kinds of allegations out there, yet actual evidence is still to be shown. CIG has been very communicative (as far as the pages show me) and in addition, Sandi Gardiner and Chris Roberts have been on a mission to create something unique and so far the intense growth makes me wonder where the anti-movement is from. The fact that this independent product is coming from crowdfunding, whilst several triple A developers have not been that successful either, apart from the usual examples I have used makes it all more questionable. In this case I would like to mention Drive Club, a Sony game that was supposed to blow us away in 2014, which is likely to end up becoming the free PlayStation Plus game no one wants to download.

In my view, No Mans Sky will be the amazing product we hope it is and the designers will unveil it when they are ready and this is stated to be in June 2016. I will await that moment. Star Citizen is the game that will be released at some point and is already showing to be an amazing experience. Elite Dangerous remains my choice and it delivered the upgraded game on a massive scale that the CBM-64 version could never deliver and in all that the game experience transferred in an amazing way. The movies show Star Citizen to be on par with other space game Sims and I feel that it is decently certain that whomever crowdfunded this will end up with a copy of the game that they will love (from the game-play movies I saw), which makes it a game that might become a legend in its own right.

In all this, where does the escapist magazine remain? Well, there remains the view that the article shows (if no proper evidence is shown) that they could be in a defamation mess. In this, additionally I must state that there is enough evidence out there that that the game will become a reality, which does not mean that serious questions should not be asked. Yet, is that bad?

You see, through crowdfunding they needed 2 million and it seems that they ended up with ninety million, so the scope of the game has grown almost exponentially, this is not a bad thing. It does however come with a new dimension in problems. You see a 90 million game would be massively different in scope than a 2 million game. This implies that you the reader should keep a massive amount of skepticism in view of the allegations, especially when no one is willing to put a name with those claims.

As a game reporter, I have issues. I am not a fan of crowd funding, yet Elite Dangerous was done through that and is the success the players are loving. There are a few other successes, but for the most it is not a stable choice to make. Now Star Citizen is likely to be next success. With that we get another game where we get to become gamers who become citizens of a star system far far away, something many of the big developers were never able to do.

So I am ending with one more side, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gawRjeZisYY shows a pre Beta game with responses from gamers. A 1st person part that is amazing (remember: pre Beta). Just one ship, flying around, walking around, which indicates that, even though delayed, the people who are on the Star Citizen train are about to get an experience that gaming has never delivered before, is that not what gaming is about? I will remain an Elite Dangerous fan, yet I can clearly see that this game will end up with a fan base that is massive, I have no doubt about that. Consider all the titles I mentioned in this article, how many of them allow to EVA to a derelict spaceship? None of them!

Realise that and consider where any of the valid anti-Star Citizen arguments remain.

Consider the elements:

  1. A crowd funder has no rights to decide the company’s course.
  2. A crowd funder is entitled to a finished product.
  3. Crowd funders are entitled to updated communications from the makers.

And if there is one valid part of opposition in all this, than it is the part on management. Yes, as far as I can see, errors were indeed made, errors in the scope that are made all over the world on a daily basis. When you suddenly learn that you got an additional 88 million to grow your game, you will make a few more errors. Yet these people are not that ‘vocal’ when it is not ‘See Eye Gee’ that is making the errors, but another three lettered company that has had its share of bungles and screw ups all over its corporation (costing millions in the process), It is called ‘Eye Bee Emm’.

Cloud Imperium Games has done element three, it is working on element two and so far we see can see element one is not in play. So please do not give in to hypes (positive or negative) and  consider the sources of any scandals implied and keep whatever thoughts you have and await the playable demo that is either Beta or a final version. I can only wish Cloud Imperium Games the best of luck and I look forward to take a real testing look at the finished product.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Law, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 14, 2015 · 00:20

A lesson learned late

We all have this, we stump our heads into a wall, some in ignorance, some through stubbornness, ideologically and the last group through determination. I am one of these four. As I bring the bad news first, I need to talk about myself. I got an extension on a test which might not be a massive one in points, but I am in a state where every point counts! Hoping to save up to 15 points on a test 44 pages long. My little big horn is a ‘Memorandum of Detailed Opinion‘. I still have 30 hours of work actual to go and I had to restart as I was turning my ‘Other Applicable Revocation Issues’ into a mesh of Titanic distraught and the deep dark feeling when you are at the top of a truly high building (like the Hancock building) and you see the street 100 flights down, that one step through the glass looks suddenly so appealing, such dread! I feel a little better, especially as I started fresh again, things are slowly adding up, connections are now coming to life. the smallest issue I had initially was a part in section 40 of the Patents Act 1990 ‘disclose the best method known to the applicant of performing the invention‘, this and a personal believe that my professor was intertwining ‘best method’ with the mathematical approach to describing Cantonese had an impact too. Yet those feelings were all between my own ears. You see, this is the first subject ever in history, where I got confronted with the limitation of my thinking. This has never happened before! We all face the music that we do not get something, but in most cases someone explains, someone aides or you find a supporting document that helps you. We all have that. No, I mean that feeling you get when your life depends on the next conversation and the one part you were not told is that everyone speaks Aramaic, that level of non-comprehension!

Yet, I also feel stronger today, because the light suddenly came on and I am starting to put it together. I took longer than I expected and if I had not been confronted with bad news last week that stress would not have stopped me from completing my assignment. Getting told you need to find another apartment tends to do that to a person whilst his exam just started. So as I finished my notes for tonight, prepping to get loads done tomorrow, I had to write this. You see, this intersects with something I read yesterday on my mobile, I believe.

That part was about Xbox boss Phil Spencer. Microsoft has always been about ideology and ignorance, so to call this part ideological ignorance is not too big a leap. Spencer stated that he was not interested in beating Sony, he was interested in gaining customers, as many as possible. In my view, his predecessors ‘messed’ it all up. I reckon not intentionally. In my view Microsoft was convinced that the TPP would have been in effect now and the steps initially made towards the XB1 would have been massively exploitative, with the law allowing them to destroy certain markets (the preowned game market for one). This all took a step back towards a streaming enterprise that did not quite make it off the floor. The 2013 promise of a 300,000 servers for gamers in one cloud. The quote is in light of the backwards compatibility claim a little hilarious: “Microsoft’s Don Mattrick stated “If you’re backwards compatible, you’re really backwards”” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/24/spin-dryers-by-microsoft/). Even then I claimed how stupid the 500 GB thought was. Sony made the same mistake, but with the Sony version a person can update when he/she is ready, the XB1 does not allow for that. In that same article I chewed on some of the presented facts: “Their on-line system is now getting grown from the initial 15,000 servers now that Xbox 360 uses, to 300,000 servers from the moment the next Xbox is launched. It is a 2,000% growth in data collection and over 200,000% storage capacity. If foundations of business are set to return-on-investment, then ask yourself why a gaming system requires that level of growth“, a question that was never answered, but with the TPP, the streaming and the data requirements, it was about the gamer, it was how he/she could best be exploited. That was the view that my mind saw and so far I have been proven correct in almost every way. The next quote supports all this “In all honesty Microsoft Marketing did state that there will be pre-owned possibilities, yet they have not officially stated how this EXACTLY will play out, so we await clarity by Microsoft“, consider that part, if the TPP would have been in effect that part would have costed gamers dearly, so in all this, we can speculate that Don Mattrick was no more than the bearer of bad news and his career took a massive tumble. Now we get Phil Spencer and how this is about gamers. A 2 year stretch that now demands a 145 degree course adjustment. The weird thing is that if the decision makers realised their audience in the era of Xbox and Xbox 360, they should have known what gamers wanted, and adjusting that with their own view of exploitation is a misplaced view to say the least.

So as I see myself ignorant and determined, I also see Microsoft as ideologically ignorant. Ideological in their pursuit of maximising profit any way they can and ignorant to consider that gamers would take this lying down. Microsoft now set at less than 40% of what Sony has, losing the market share the 360 had grown, how stupid is that? The big issue is still that Mettrick and Spencer leave the feeling of being no more than puppets on a string, jumping to the needs of the decision makers behind the screens of Microsoft. Their strings to be cut at a moment’s notice. It is the second failing compared to Sony. Yet, in all this I must admit that Sony is likely to work in similar ways, but in a much better setting as their focus has been the gamer for 4 iterations of their console. That does account for something.

I feel that I learned my lesson late, hopefully not too late and the next two weeks will be about work 24%, study 48% and the rest is about trying to get sleep, food and an apartment. I feel strengthened as my eyes open towards the issues I could not solve for almost 10 days. I also feel better as Microsoft seems oblivious towards the gain they lost whilst they should have known better, in that respect Gamespot (who was source to most of the Microsoft information) should also have known better and as they seem to hide behind the PS4 vs XB1 console war, they have done too little regarding the investigation on the business decisions that did hurt a contending console and forced it towards a gloomier place. We can all admit that backwards compatibility will gain them momentum, yet in the end it will be about good games and yes, Microsoft has done a decent job, but with the lost field, decent will not hack it.

So I end this article with a personal message to Phil Spencer. Phil, I am not blaming you (which would be unfair), I am not having a go at you (which would be too easy), yet I will do your job for you this one instance. There is a game coming, it is nowhere near ready at present, but it is getting there. It is for PC and it has the option of becoming every bit as addictive as Minecraft currently is. So another masterpiece by an indie developer! The game is called Heat Signature as it shows massive promise. This game could propel the XB1 even further. The quirkiness and the connected options for multiplayer could be next thing people desire. The single player part is showing real promise. So instead of waiting and having to shell out another 2 billion for a game Microsoft didn’t create, so how about getting in front of a repetitive timeline for a change?

Heat Signature (heatsig.com) is able to be uniquely placed next to Elite Dangerous, Eve Online, Star Citizen and No Mans Sky. It can exist next to all of them and will be as entertaining to all those who play the other mentioned titles. I suggest that you keep your eye on @HeatSig (Twitter address) and feel free not heeding my word (I have only been wrong 4 times in the last 30 years when it comes to gaming), so I am due another failure. Yet the stats go hugely my way and as such I predict that Heat Signature, a Tom Francis production which was, as I remember it a Johnny Chiodini discovery evolve into a true contender for being the next big thing (as an indie developer title).

In all this, am I too ideological when it comes to gaming? That is a fair question and I must ask this from myself if I want to remain connected to a field I have been involved in since 1983. I believe so and games like Fallout 4 show my view to be a good one. In equal part Elite Dangerous shows that true passion for a game can last decades (something Blizzard also proved with the Diablo series) and in all this Ubisoft squandered it and Microsoft rejected their view only to get bitten on their sitting area really hard. The future belongs to the believers, because faith has always been the most pure and natural driving force. It got me my law degree it got me to the final stage of my MIP and it can get anyone to their place of achievement. Greed is never an achievement! Will Microsoft learn from their mistakes? That remains dubious because the puppeteers behind the screens remain an unknown. I do believe that illuminating them could shed light on the problem and truly propel the world of gamers forward as the onslaught of counterproductive acts end up getting terminated with extreme prejudice. EA has 7 months left to learn their lesson and not fall into the traps with Mass Effect Andromeda, traps that Ubisoft seems to be unable to avoid. Still, if they are unable to do that, John Oliver will be able to have a little fun here too.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Law

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 24, 2015 · 22:58

Get the right info to choose.

I have always believed in this, a person has to make a choice and it is up to the informers to make sure that the people are given the true choices. This is always hard, there is no denying this. You see, we are all biased to some extent. I fell in love with Elite in 1984 and with the coming of Elite Dangerous, that passion returned. So when I read ‘Will Elite: Dangerous Be Wiped Out by Star Citizen & its Beautiful Ships?‘ (at http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/07/23/will-elite-dangerous-be-wiped-out-by-star-citizen-its-beautiful-ships-3406342) I just had to take a look.

For me there were two reasons, the first is that as a previous passionate Elite player, I am very aware of the game and I feel that I am in possession of expert knowledge to counter most attacks on Elite Dangerous (without having played the game until my XBN1 arrives next month). I know next to nothing about Star Citizens, so when I hear that a game like No man’s Sky and like Elite is out there, I will take a look (I believe that there is a place for all three games if they are up to scrap).

The first quote that got to me is “It’s a beautiful game, but it can also be isolating and boring. You have to be prepared to invest a lot of time into Elite: Dangerous in order to benefit from its gameplay” which was preceded by “it’s held back by numerous irritations“, which got to me just on the go. This all linked back to a previous article. From this I wonder what level of investigation Kenny McDonnell did to begin with.

Now his allegations from the previous will be addressed shortly.

‘Can also be isolating and boring‘

Is that true? The game has Solo Mode (just you), Private mode (just you and your friends) and Open mode (you, your friends, soon to be new friends and all unmentioned wankers), so what do you mean isolating? Now the XB1 version is still not finalised, so this is still coming, for now that version is solo only (well decently dependable solo). There is no denying, that version still has bugs because it is not finished yet and if that is not a real bother you can get the game for $31, which is AWESOME!

‘Prepared to invest a lot of time‘

Well, is that not what a game is about? For the record, the game has several trainings missions for you to get into the game, I reckon that this will take a little over an hour to get it all done, if you also watch the attached trainings videos to help you get the best out of it all you can complete the trainings missions a little under 55 minutes (rough guess). Now, if you want to know the truth, you should watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rtajDGnqAo

This is by far the best intro video made. It is the work of Troa Barton, watching it is a must. In one hour he shows the beginning highlights. In that time he gives a short explanation and shows more than I bargained for, so I was hooked again in 10 minutes. In that time he kills half a dozen opponents with the ship you get at the very beginning of the game. So you get a good start in 1 hour, which is again AWESOME!

So is there any truth to ‘prepared to invest a lot of time‘? Yes! You see there are 20 ships and 10 more coming. Ships fall into different categories and some will cost up to 200 million to buy and outfit, you start with 1000 credits, so this is not a small game it is a massive journey and you get the universe to traverse and grow. Some will like mining, some will prefer hunting, smuggling and piracy, some will prefer trading. All options, whatever YOU decide.

Some parts can be boring especially when you are trading, however, boring is good because some trade ships are not that good in fighting, by the time you have earned enough outfit an anaconda, which sets you back over 200 million, you have a ship that can devastate loads of opponents and carry 260 tons of goods, which at 15K per tonne per haul nets you a quick 3.9 million. So all this is not boring at all.

If you are a feistier person where you can tell the opponent that he/she is no ‘2B’ (and kill that person) you are in charge of choosing what to do.

Now we get part 2 with the quote “However, there’s another game on the horizon. One that promises players a space sim like no other; Star Citizen. Star Citizen may have a release date in 2016, but I can see it excelling on the PC“, so Kenny (not the ‘oh my god they killed Kenny’ person), is dissing a game in a bad way against a game that is not out for another year? Odd, because he becomes all speculation for a game that is not even out yet. And let us not forget that Elite (the original) was an established level of excellence in 1985 and now again from all the videos you can see online, this game does it again.

Then he states “We’ll have first-person space combat, mining and trading, all colliding with first-person shooter elements in a massively multiplayer persistent universe“, which is what Elite Dangerous on the PC already is (in space flight). So what’s the beef?

Then we get “Personally, I can’t see Elite: Dangerous performing well under the pressure that Star Citizen will bring to the space sim community on PC“, which is fair enough, it is his view and as such he is entitled to think this. I personally believe that Elite is already bringing the pain of great gaming now!

Now I need to step back for a moment to look back at his previous article which is linked in the article I linked at the beginning.

The price of minerals is too low and therefore not profitable or worth doing.
 – Really? True that your first ship is not equipped for that, but the later ships are and you can get a few millions per trip down the track.

Exploration data could also be upgraded as the player isn’t given enough of an incentive to do so – other than the universe is pretty.
 – Really? Larger ships have great exploration options, but you need a large ship and several components costing millions.

A small point that someone on Reddit made I completely agree with: Lower the scanning range on planets, so while exploring the player has to go close to the planet to scan them, therefore providing better visuals and experience.
– That might be a fair point, I cannot comment on that.

A greater variety of missions for those that aren’t Elite would be much appreciated.
– Again a fair point, yet Elite is still growing on the PC, so that is an option, further the power play option in the game has several goals to achieve and you get to select yourself HOW to achieve them.

More merits for getting cargo or resistance pockets – they’re not really worth the hassle in the game’s current state.
– I actually do not know (so again this might be a fair point)

An improved in-game chat feature
 – true, for now it is one on one, unlike the XB1 edition where you would have group chat as the system is made for that.

Now, some points here are valid, yet this game is still growing and the game offers 100 times more than the original ever did and it is currently in state ‘released’ something Star Citizen is not.

In addition, the current article had to mention for Star Citizen:

Over a hundred star systems in game which will be hand crafted and will include heavily themed, scenic landing locations from day one unlike Elite: Dangerous.
– fair enough but that game is still a year away, in addition, a hundred systems versus billions of systems is a far stretch of competition.

No procedural generation could lead to less boredom when traversing space.
– So far people opposing ‘procedural generation’ seem to not understand it, for that part just look at many no man’s sky videos. Procedural Generation does not imply boring iteration, that has been shown in No man’s sky a few times (will get to the Elite side shortly)

Far more freedom in terms of ships and their customisation.
– Possible, yet Elite already has 20, 10 are upcoming and there is no information that it will end there, in addition there are all levels of customisation, which is about the ship, not the look.

Superior graphics and more well-designed worlds.
– That is massively subjective, on the PC what I personally saw, some of the sites are beyond amazing and let’s not forget this is a space game, space is overwhelmingly black.

Better control over your ship, with improvements like yaw and more focus on first-person shooting mechanics.
– That shows that Kenny did not do his homework, the instruction videos on the PC show all that, including advanced lateral movement, strafing and so on. I reckon that it requires a decent HOTAS to enjoy (in opposition of the keyboard), so as I expect the XB1 to have the same options, I have not personally seen that.

Now let’s take a look at Star Citizen, the work of Chris Roberts.

Important is that he was one of the people behind Wing Commander, which I played intensely, so I know that this was a good game. So the person behind all this is not a newbie or a wannabe.

Now even though Star Citizen has had its share of Scepticism, we must remain honest. This is a crowdfunded game and it is well funded at present. In addition, a game like this is not an easy feat, yet also, the person behind this has proven his merits with Wing Commander. So as this is a 2016 game, my first view is that whomever start nagging and whining before October 2015 is an absolute idiot and should not have crowdfunded this (or just shut up until the beta is out there in its full potential)

So as we take a look at Star Citizen we need to keep an open mind. From the first go we see something very well done, but this is a trainings mission, if the rest of the game is on par than this game will be well worth it. So apart from walking around, the game definitely looks good (as it is) but the game has a long way to go (several glitches were shown, but as I stated, this is a beta at best). This was an April video, so I can assume that the game has processed from that point. I will not judge the game on what I saw, apart from the fact that it looks good, in addition there is no way to correctly assume that this game will outdo an established game like Elite Dangerous, but I feel that if the game goes on with the level of views that I see now, there is nothing stopping this game to become the third game next to Elite Dangerous and No Man’s Sky. There is no way that it overtakes either based on the information I currently have but that does not stop Star Citizen to become an equal game with a growing fan base.

Now for some future Elite expansions (as per the Elite Dangerous Wiki)

Landing / driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids.
Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships.

The first two are nice and adds to the experience of Elite

Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports.
Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces.
Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players.

The rest is nice too, but I hope that these extensions are not an attempt to add a ‘Mass Effect’ mode to the game (although walking through Space Stations could be an awesome experience.

So both games will have their own moments in where they excel. I do not agree with the view that Kenny McDonnell has regarding Elite Dangerous, but he is allowed his own view. I believe that there is space for both games.

The additional question becomes why must all games have all the options?

I believe that the lover of No Man’s Sky will love Elite Dangerous and there is a decent chance that they will love Star Citizen too.

I see that Star Citizen (from the training mission) is a more serious attempt to create a space flight flight simulator, it seems more on a ‘military’ approach to fighting than Elite Dangerous is. If I would compare it to other games than Elite Dangerous versus Star Citizen in that regard relates to Privateer versus Falcon 4.0, so from what I see now, the people who love more realistic fight flight Simulators would push themselves towards Star Citizens (when it arrives), so feel free to have fun with Elite Dangerous until that game arrives. That is from the little I saw from Star Citizen now, but that is not a guarantee that a more basic flight and fight options would not be available. Star Citizen is, as I see it at least a year away. So in all this I personally have a few issues with the article Kenny McDonell wrote.

From my view, you the reader, if you are into these kind of games, watch the Troa Barton video and decide from that whether you would give Elite Dangerous a go, as it will be one year until you can start the discussion whether you want Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous or both.

Just make sure in the end it was your choice due to receiving the proper information!

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,