Tag Archives: TES7

This happens to us all and it happened to me today. I was pretty much minding my own business when something on LinkedIn hit me, it hit me square in the jaw. It was the application in another direction, but I contemplated it to apply to gaming in a similar way. You see, this is not an easy story and a lot of you might not get it, that is fine. It is the evolution from RPG to CtLFG. Role Playing games evolving in Close to Life Fantasy Gaming. Confused? That is fine. To get this I need to give you some examples. You are sneaking in a cave and slaughtering all you can and at times you hear “It must be my imagination”, it was one of several things that bothered me. Now this is not on any player and not on Bethesda. They created greatness with Skyrim. It survived three generations (PS3, PS4 and PS5) and has been around since November 11th 2011. More then 12 years. To have one game do this, especially an RPG is nothing less than astounding. As such with that in mind I initially created TES7: Restoration (the initial design was from 2015). 

In this the foundation was set with Cyrodiil (Oblivion), to make it work that map would need to be 3 times larger on the X and Y axis, making the map 900% of the previous one. The imperial city would be similar that much bigger, cities would be somewhat bigger, more people and in the end we would connect Skyrim to this and optionally whatever TES6 would be, but that would be options. Restoration required both Valenwood and Elsweyr to be added as that would be the setting for the story and main quest. Yet the setting would be larger than just these two parts, missions that cover all the areas. A lot more side missions and even side quest lines. Now we get to the evolution part. To avoid grinding I used IP originally by Vint Cerf, but now applied to gaming would make it an innovation patent and now we are off to the races. Yet something happened./ Microsoft bought Bethesda and I will not help losers, so I made parts of all this Public domain with the setting that this was to be exclusive Amazon Luna/Tencent Handheld. I wanted these two to have an edge over Microsoft/Bethesda. That was the first setting. 

Now the slap
As such today I got slapped by surprise by someone named Willem Koenders gave LinkedIn a new setting to BI in data. It has an offensive side and a defensive side. 

It is brilliant. I can see the stage of several issues becoming a thing of the past. Rollback issues, especially in data with second and third tier connections would have been a nightmare, especially to rebuild some of these connections. As I see it, that is a thing of the past with this, rollback becomes repair with a second datafile upload. And in the short time I looked at it, there would be additional benefits. Now apply this to new and advanced RPG gaming (CtLFG). You see, the old ways will not work on larger RPG games, it would require cloud gaming and that is where the new strains become the power of GaaS (Gaming as a Service). You see, evolved gaming (RPG) no longer has trigger points perse, but a combination of a narrative point, a location point as well as a quest trigger. It becomes too complex for the PS5, but not for cloud gaming. That is where the game takes of in new directions and new dimensions. 

As such my mind went into overdrive. You see, I had focussed on the stories and the interactions, but I had not considered the data side of this all. The image by Willem Koenders gave me that setting and it could be a much larger setting in cloud gaming too. Yes, it is always about the larger part, but consider that we always must look forward. We cannot play Skyrim forever. Now consider (Skyrim)⁴ and see where that gets you. In addition, as it is cloud gaming new quests could be added over time as well. A nightmare option in any console. With cloud gaming it is done before you know it and available just as fast. And the setting in a new game would be tremendous. You see grinding ends, it becomes a challenge every time around and that setting reflects in a multiple of ways. With the new data setting you could get thousands, if not hundred of thousands of conversations. Consider a city not with a few dozen NPC characters, but with 1,000 NPC characters. It allows for a lot more options. In addition to that, the setting of friend and foe changes. You now end up with friends, unsubstantiated gossip, boasts, lies, and foes. A new setting in adventure gaming. Suddenly a personality with charisma becomes a lot more important, in addition to this so is the setting towards corrupt guards, people luring you towards traps and walking blindly into them is never a good idea. 

An evolved setting towards gaming and I reckon that this is merely the start. Any indie developer with a clear head and clear direction can grow and take serious market share away from Bethesda (and of course Microsoft). 

Now consider the image again. Consider on the offensive side Customer insight (NPC character) linked to analytics which becomes available choices (lore, conversations and actions), on the defensive side we also add NPC character, but now connected to city laws (compliance) and actions based on YOUR activities (stealing, walking, sneaking, killing) as such sneaking through any place now has impact on that population. In addition it is ‘short-term’ impact, yet when you do that again you get recognised quicker. And from there we now get narratives (storylines and conversations) as well as locations (shop owner, home owner). There is a longer impact to actions.  And leaving the house is no longer a ‘reset’ to activities. I set this to a much larger effect in out of town locations (what some call caves, mines and so forth). As I see it, Vint Cerf had no idea what his IP could do in that setting, but that is the way the cookie crumbles at times.

In this my brain is still reeling with all the thoughts it is creating (even now), but it is time to snore like a sawmill and greet Thursday, which is less then 3 hours away at present. It is still 25 degrees, I am melting. Time to snore.

Enjoy your day.