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universallychildtimemachine · 25 days

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Top Legal Technology Solutions Companies

In today's fast-paced world, the legal profession is experiencing a profound transformation, and it's all thanks to the rapid advancements in legal technology. Gone are the days when legal professionals relied solely on paper-based records, endless hours of research, and face-to-face consultations. Legal technology is ushering in a new era, offering greater efficiency, transparency, and accessibility in the legal field. This editorial will explore the evolution of legal technology and the profound impact it has had on the practice of law.

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multisoftsystem · 29 days

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SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) Online Training and Certification Course

Master billing and revenue management with the SAP BRIM online training and certification course offered by Multisoft Systems. Develop skills to optimize payment systems and revenue operations in a comprehensive, virtual course environment.

#online training #Course #sap brim training #SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management Training #SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management Course

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marketxcel · 3 months

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Top 10 Most Valuable Global Brands of 2024

Explore the latest rankings and insights into the global business landscape with our blog on the "Top 10 Most Valuable Global Brands of 2024." Discover the strategic moves, innovations, and market dynamics propelling these brands to the forefront of success. Stay ahead of the curve as we delve into the stories behind the numbers and unveil the driving forces shaping the business world this year.

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sapimplementations · 4 months

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Revenue Innovation Management

Explore advanced revenue management, innovative invoice automation, and efficient revenue cycle solutions for optimized finances and increased profitability.

Revenue Innovation Management

https://mobolutions.com/2023/12/13/navigating-the-complexities-of-the-tpa-industry-challenges/

#revenue innovation management #Revenue Cycle Automation

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luckyonexcel · 8 months

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Revolutionizing Affiliate Marketing Strategies | Tips for Success

The world of affiliate marketing has always been dynamic and ever-evolving, from its humble beginnings to the present day this form of online earning has witnessed tremendous growth and has Been an integral component of digital marketing strategies, many businesses consider it essential to incorporate it.. What lies ahead for affiliate marketing in the future? How will it continue to thrive and…

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neomdincblog · 1 year

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VASCULAR BILLING SERVICES By NEO MD

Maximize your revenue and minimize billing headaches with our Vascular Billing solutions. With NEO MD’s innovative technology and extensive knowledge of Vascular billing codes and regulations, we can ensure that your practice is getting reimbursed for every service rendered. Trust the professionals and schedule a consultation now!

Get us at! ([email protected]) or (929) 502-3636). https://neomdinc.com/

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public-trans-it · 8 months

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i would love to hear your dark spore rant. i didnt even know spore had a sequel.

Oh anon. Poor sweet anon. I’m so sorry.

So, the thing about Darkspore is…

… it was a really REALLY… mediocre game.

Like, the moment to moment gameplay was… fine. Just fine. Not incredible. But not BAD! Really, it only had two major flaws:

The first, it was buggy as hell. One particularly nasty bug was present in the games launcher, and on certain systems the game would fail to install at all. They were unable to ever fix this bug, which I speculate was a major reason the game was abandoned by the devs so quickly and lead to it being taken down from every major digital distribution site. You could still install and play it if you already bought it though! If… it actually installed for you.

Which leads us to the second flaw. It’s right there on the box.

“Internet connection required”

The game has Always Online DRM. All the levels, enemies, loot, your entire account, was all stored server side. And servers are expensive. So, when the games bugs became unwieldy and not worth fixing, and they took it offline… it became a money sink. It was a game generating ZERO revenue, but had huge server maintenance costs. So eventually, they just shut down the servers.

It is now very difficult to obtain the game, requiring you to buy one of the few unopened physical copies remaining. And even once you do have it, it is IMPOSSIBLE to play. There is a project called Resurrection Capsule in the works, some fans trying to create a private server for it. But with so much info stored server side, they basically have to recreate entire subsystems from scratch. It’s… not going very fast, and to my knowledge hasn’t been touched in over a year.

Story

The story of the game is pretty basic. A progenitor race of alien super-scientists create a new, synthetic form of DNA, called Exponential-DNA, or E-DNA. This rapidly mutates to create new life, and can be guided to create specific, specialized organisms, condensing thousands of years of evolution to a few hours. It can also be injected into existing creatures to alter them and make them more powerful. However it also linked everything affected by it into a hivemind. So it was outlawed. The creator of it decided to respond by creating a E-DNA virus, called The Darkspore, infecting himself with it, and spreading it across the galaxy and conquering it, wiping out his own race.

You play as another member of that race, who has been in hibernation for 1000 years while that was going down. Your ship AI has woken you up because it has managed to stabilize E-DNA and also keep it disconnected from the hivemind, and needs you to go kill the guy who took over the galaxy. That is how the game starts.

…

And how the story ends. There is not really any more story past that part. You get a cutscene describing each of the games 6 planets the first time you visit it, and a final “Hey you won!” cutscene after killing the final boss which ends with the cliche “implication the villain isn’t really dead” trope, and… that’s it. That’s the entire story. Not really the selling point of this game. Its not even entirely clear if it takes place in the same universe as Spore! It’s just set dressing for “Run through these 24 levels and beat everything up”

Gameplay

Darkspore was created by Maxis. This alone was HUGE. This was a team of developers who only really made lifesims like The Sims and Sim City, taking a stab at making a diablolike game.

And I GENUINELY BELIEVE every single studio out there needs to do shit like this. Designing for something so outside your wheelhouse creates SOOOOO much innovation so quickly. You get fresh new ideas injected into the genre so quickly. The final product won’t be good! You don’t have any damn experience in the genre! But it will create something unique beautiful, and god damn I wish we lived in a world where that alone was enough and devs weren’t focused on chasing profits instead.

Genesis

Genesis is just a fancy way of saying ‘Element’. There are 5 of them: Plasma (fire and lightning), Bio (plants and animals), Cyber (machines), Necro (death and fear), and Quantum (space and time) and the way they interact is… certainly a choice I guess. Each Darkspore you face has a genesis it falls into, and each of your heroes has one as well. If your Genesis matches that of the darkspore you are fighting at the moment, you take double damage and they take half damage. If they don’t match, all damage both ways is neutral.

The system itself is kinda mediocre. The biggest part of it, however, is the Variant Skills. Each Genesis has 4 unique skills tied to it that represent the common elements of that type.

Heroes

There are 25 heroes in the game, which each have one Genesis and one Class (Sentinel which are the tanks, Ravagers which are the DPS, and Tempest which are the Casters/Support)

Each hero has 4 total variants, with the first one you unlock being Alpha, and as you level up your account (heroes do not have their own levels) you eventually can purchase their Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants, with each variant having slightly different stats, and a different one of their Genesis’ 4 variant abilities.

Each hero has a unique basic attack, which USUALLY has a little extra to it. For example Sage shoots a bolt that hurts enemies it hits, but heals allies it hits. Zrin alternates between two different punches, one of which has a short duration DoT and the other of which has a 10% stun chance. Stuff like that.

They also have a passive effect that is always active while you are playing them. Collect a soul from each enemy killed for a 5% damage boost, 10% damage bonus when attacking from behind, a stacking defense buff every time you take damage, stuff like that.

Finally, a character has 2 unique abilities. One that is unique to them and can only be used while you are playing that hero, and a second ability that is everyone in the squad can use if that hero is present.

Squad Decks

Which brings me to the first rant and something I am SO AUTISTIC ABOUT (positive). SQUADS. The game had you craft Squad Decks, collections of 3 heroes that you can swap between during your missions, for a total of 883.2k squad combinations (I think my math might be off on that). Swapping between them is on a cooldown of about 10 seconds, but otherwise is don’t instantaneously and as often as you want without penalty. You always have 5 abilities active:

- The unique ability of your active hero

- The Genesis ability of your active heroes variant

- Hero 1’s Squad ability

- Hero 2’s Squad ability

- Hero 3’s squad ability

The first two abilities change out every time you swap heroes, but the last 3 are fixed. So you have 3 abilities that you always have access to, and 6 abilities that are paired up and you can swap between which pair of those abilities is active.

Your heroes do NOT share a health/energy pool, but DO share healing pickups. Any time you pick up a health or energy restoration pickup, it refills a chunk of the respective health pool of your currently active hero, and a smaller chunk of each of your inactive heroes in the squad.

So the core loop of moment to moment gameplay becomes swapping situationally between heroes both offensively and defensively, to get access to your other heroes skills and also to mitigate damage from enemies based on their genesis or control where your healing is directed.

Loot

Loot in Darkspore is fairly standard for your average Diablolike. Item drops have 4 tiers: Common (Item Level=Account Level-5), Uncommon (Item Level=Account Level), Rarified (Item Level=Account Level+5), and Purified (Item Level=Account Level+10)

Items of higher tiers have more chances to roll on a table to gain beneficial modifiers.

Each item fell into one of a few different categories: Weapon, Hands, Feet, Offensive, Defensive, or Utility.

Each hero has one of each slot, plus an additional slot based on their class. Ravagers have an extra Offense slot, Sentinels have an extra Defense slot, and Tempests have an extra Utility slot. Any hero can equip any item you gain, with the exception of Weapons that are hero specific. Some heroes also lack Hands or Feet, in which case their weapon has extra stats and can get the same modifiers as hands and feet can.

The items you equip can then be added onto the Hero in the Hero Editor. The Hero Editor is often equated to the Creature Editor in Spore, which is BULLSHIT and was a pet peeve of mine the ENTIRE DAMN TIME THE FAME WAS LIVE. This is a FALSE EQUIVALENCE. It uses the outfit editor from the Tribal/Civilization phases of Spore instead. Importantly: this means you cannot alter the overall silhouette of your hero. It will always maintain the same basic profile and animations. However you can freely place the extra parts you equip anywhere on its body, and can also place multiple copies of them.

Additionally, old parts can have their stats stripped, converting them into ‘Detail’ parts with no stats, of which you can equip 6 different parts, each of which you can include 10 copies of on your hero. So you could get some pretty cool looks from it!

However all this loot is garbage and you likely would not use most of it outside of appearance. Which brings me to…

Cash-out Loot

Usually if you mention the word ‘cash’ in any sentence involving a game published by EA, it would be a call for concern. Luckily this isn’t that! It’s just gambling! Everything is fine!

The main progression in Darkspore comes from gear, and the best gear comes from how good your ships engines are. These come from account upgrades as you level up your account, determining how many levels you can do in a row. Every time you complete a level, you are given an option: Keep going, or ‘cash out’ and get a guaranteed piece of Uncommon gear, with a 10% chance of it becoming Rarified, as well as all the gear you picked up in the level.

If you choose to keep going, you have to complete the next level. If you die, you lose ALL the gear you picked up, including that guaranteed piece. If you make it to the end, you are given another choice: Risk it all again and go on to the next level, or stop here and get your TWO pieces of guaranteed uncommon loot, which each now have a 20% chance of becoming rarified and a 5% chance of becoming purified.

You can only go another of levels equal to the number of Engine Upgrades you have earned by leveling up your account. So at first, after the second level you HAVE to cash out. As you progress you can start to do many more levels at a time, getting a dozen pieces of gear that are practically guaranteed to be the highest rank.

But of course you have to play these levels in order, and you don’t get a chance to upgrade your character with all the cool new loot you found on the way, so you can’t just jump straight into this. You have to slowly build up to being able to push yourself this much, and once you can, you have a readily available source of some of the best gear in the game.

And that ties into my absolute favorite system of Darkspore:

Catalysts

Many diablolikes have a mechanic called ‘Sockets’. The gear you equip has its own type of equipment slot, and you put gems in there that give you small bonuses. Every game does it a little differently, but it’s kind of a staple of the series.

Darkspore uses a similar system, but utilizes it VERY differently. While you are running levels, enemies will rarely drop Catalysts instead of loot. These come in 5 colors: Purple (boosts your base stats), Red (boosts offensive secondary stats like damage or attack speed), Blue (boosts defensive secondary stats like health regen or damage resistance), Green (boosts utility secondary stats like movement speed or lifesteal), and Rainbow (can contain any of the bonuses of the previous categories) They also come in two sizes: Big and Small. This determines how big the bonus from them is.

You have a 3x3 grid on your HUD that the catalysts you collect go into. You can rearrange them however you want, and if you create a line of 3 of the same color (Rainbow is a wildcard and matches with all of them), it will double the bonus of all Catalysts in that line. This stacks, meaning if you create multiple lines over a single catalyst it could get a x3, x4, or even x5 bonus if it’s the center piece of the grid and forms a line in every direction.

However, you can’t save Catalysts. You can equip it to the grid or drop it on the ground and move on. That’s it. You have to decide now. Do you keep that Big Purple you have for the big buff to your most important stat, or do you trade it for that Small Rainbow for a mediocre stat you just found that you can plug in the middle and double everything else in your grid?

“Surely that only matters early game, and once you have good catalysts you don’t swap them out that much, right?” I hear the diablolike veterans asking, because that is how socketing works in most of those games. And normally you would be right. Except for one major change: All your catalysts only last until the end of your run. When you get to the cash out screen, and choose to keep going? You keep them. But if you choose to cash out, or if you ever die, your catalysts all vanish. Every new run you have to go through and collect them again, which results in you playing your heroes in new ways and adopting new strategies based on what catalysts drop for you each run.

It’s an INCREDIBLE easy to learn system that adds SO MUCH depth and replayability to the game. I love it so incredibly much. Each mechanic flows elegantly into the the next. The catalysts help you do better runs which gets you better gear which upgrades your heroes which lets you do better runs, the entire spiral being locked into your account level to give a quantifiable metric of how far this spiral is gone. It was so good!

And now, it’s gone forever.

Man that sure was a long post. Friends have heard me go on this rant SO many times. Thank god I never got into a second mediocre game filled with novel innovations that are ultimately lost to time and can never be experienced again due to Always Online DRM making it unplayable. Can you imagine if I didn’t learn my lesson and did that a second time? Ha!

… I never did that again. Right?

… right?

…

HEX: Shards of Fate

Hex was a digital TCG legal battle with TCG elements created by Cryptozoic. It was originally put up on Kickstarter, advertised as a digital card game with both PvE and PvP modes, a unique focus on the design space opened up by being a digital game, and gameplay damn near identical to Magic: The Gathering.

The thinly veiled truth was that this game was never meant to succeed. They had hoped it would, and it would be great if it did, but I’m fairly certain that was always a secondary objective. The first objective was to get sued by Wizards of the Coast over the similarities to Magic: The Gathering.

Now, that might sound strange to an outsider, but to anyone in the industry, they are probably nodding along and going “Yeah that tracks actually.”

You see, Wizards of the Coast is… bad. Really bad. They do everything in their power to choke the life out of the industry and have resorted to a lot of questionable tactics to do so. One of these is against anyone who develops any form of trading card game. You see, WotC has a patent on booster packs, customizable decks of cards, and turning cards sideways.

Literally.

U.S. Patent No 5,662,332 (A)

It is not a coincidence that the second two biggest names in TCGs don’t involve turning your cards sideways. Konami contested that Yugioh was different enough to not violate the patent.

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Nintendo actually hired WotC to design the Pokémon TCG to NOT violate the patent in return for WotC getting to distribute the first few sets. WotC gladly accepted, distributed the game, got their cut of the sales, and as soon as that was over….

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Every single other game out there ended up paying royalties to WotC. Because the cut of the sales to WotC was cheaper than going to court even if you won. WotC had their fingers in every pie, but was smart enough to make sure not to piss people off so much that refusal was ever a viable option.

Cryptozoic was a company that, at the time, was making several licensed TCGs. The big one that jumps out was the World of Warcraft TCG, which they were in charge of (though it was originally made by Upper Deck). Cryptozoic was begrudgingly paying royalties because having the WoWTCG license was too good and they didn’t want to give that up. Then Hearthstone happened and Cryptozoic was going to lose the WoWTCG license as it got discontinued.

So Cryptozoic set up their new game, Hex, specifically to bait WotC into suing them, so they could get the patent overturned.

See, the patent isn’t actually valid. You cannot patent a game mechanic. There are certainly aspects of the patent that ARE valid and CAN be enforced, but the parts about mechanics can’t actually be enforced. WotC uses it because people can’t contest it, but if it actually was used in court it would get overturned VERY easily, and WotC would be declawed.

So Cryptozoic created a game that was a clone of MtG, used a Kickstarter to build up a large amount of legal funds, and got sued by WotC! Yes! Exactly what they wanted!

… and then they settled out of court.

Sigh.

I guess I’ll talk about the game now.

Lore

The lore of the game was solid. Pretty typical fantasy setting. Humans and elves and sort of racist orcs (better than most other orcs I’ve seen at least) and extremely racist tribal coyote people make up the good guys. Undead, spider-orcs, dwarves, and also pretty racist samurai rabbit people make up the bad guys.

There are two types of magic in the world: Blood magic and Wild magic. Elves are adept at wild magic. Shin’hare (the rabbit people) are adept at wild magic as well. The Shin’hare tried to take over the world, forcing the Orcs, Humans, Elves, and Cyotle to ally together to drive them underground into the underworld.

There the Shin’hare met and allied with the Vennen, an all male race descended from Orcs. They were adept blood mages, and they procreated by kidnapping orcs and using them as incubators for spiders. I fucking love the Vennen. I’ll focus on them a lot in this. The Vennen taught the Shin’hare how to sacrifice their young for more power.

The two then allied with the Dwarves, a genderless race of sentient stone statues who excel at creating machinery, and who believe the world itself is a giant machine. Specifically, a weapon of mass destruction, and they are trying to set it off. They believe blowing people the fuck up to be their natural calling.

The underworld and overworld forces go back and forth a bit, with the Elves doing a large chunk of the work as the only overworld race that can use magic.

Then Hex happened. Hex is a massive meteor made up of Diamond, Emerald, and Sapphire. Hex punched clean through the world, scattering gems all across it, before stabilizing in orbit on the other side, becoming the worlds moon.

These gems were incredibly magical, allowing every race to now use magic. Diamonds were restorative, bringing life to things. Rubies were extremely destructive and burned bright and hot and quickly. Sapphire allowed finesse manipulation and control over water. These

Yes this is just the MtG color pie.

Eventually, humanity stumbled into one of their old crypts that was very close to the impact site of Hex, and found it CRAWLING with undead. They were taking the Diamonds from Hex and putting them into the eye sockets of human corpses, causing those corpses to reanimate. These were NOT actually undead, but an alien consciousness that existed within the gems that were using human corpses as a host.

The Necrotic sought a peaceful and symbiotic relationship with humanity as thanks for the use of the bodies. Humanity responded by getting really pissed off that the Necrotic were grave robbing, and went to war over it. Eventually the Necrotic retreated deep into the underworld and allied with the other races instead, eventually helping the Shin’hare with a second attack on the surface.

The lore has a lot more depth than that, but that’s the basic. I liked it a lot. The Orcs being good guys who just really liked tests of strength was a refreshing take on orcs. I liked them a lot. The extremely racist caricature that made up the Cyotle and the Shin’hare? Less so.

Digital Design Space

As for the actual gameplay… it was MtG. Like, almost 1:1.

Like…

Seriously.

Shards work similarly to Lands, with there being 5 basic shards, Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Wild, and Blood. You can only play one Shard per turn and when you do you get 1/1 Resource. 1 resource to spend on this turn, and 1 permanent resource. You spend that resource to play a card that costs 1, and you go down to 0/1 resources. Start of your turn, you would go back up to 1/1 resource.

Pretty straight forward stuff. Resources are a card type like in MtG, but once it’s played it acts as a perpetual resource like the Mana in Hearthstone, with no need to care about where the resource is coming from.

… wait a second though, this is a MtG clone. It uses the color pie. Caring where those resources come from is KIND OF a big deal in MtG.

Which is the first really cool difference between Hex and MtG! THRESHOLD! Each time you play a shard you gain 1 threshold in that color. To play a card, you have to have at least as many threshold as are displayed below its cost. See that purple dot below Murder? That means you need 1 blood threshold to play it.

Threshold is NOT consumed when you play a card, which DRASTICALLY alters deckbuilding and how feasible multi-color decks are.

For example, in MtG, if you had 4 swamps and 1 mountain in play, and 5 cards in hand that all cost R…. You can play 1 whole card this turn.

In Hex, if you have 4 Blood and 1 Ruby, and have 5 cards that all cost 1 and have a single Ruby threshold, you can play your entire hand that turn. This made it incredibly viable to splash colors in relatively smaller amounts. It also opened up cool new design space, like cards that cost 1 but still required 3 threshold in a color. Or cards that require 1 threshold of every type to activate a bonus effect (very common among Necrotic) or… for sockets!

HEY WE ARE COMING FULL CIRCLE!

Remember how I mentioned Diablolike games having sockets, but how Darkspore didn’t use it? Well Hex DOES. There was a pair of keywords called Socketable Major and Socketable Minor. Each set, there would be 10 gems (two of each color) that rotated out for Socketable cards. Cards with Major sockets could equip any gem, while minor sockets could only equip half of them. So for example the current rotation might have the Sapphire gems be “While you have at least 1 Sapphire Threshold, this card has Flying” for its Minor gem, and “When you play this card, if you have at least 3 Sapphire Threshold, target player draws 3 cards”

You chose which gem was in each Socketable card during deckbuilding. Different copies of the same card could have different gems equipped, or you could have the same gem equipped across multiple different cards. It was basically a way to go “This card was designed to be splashed in other color decks. You pick what that other color is.”

It opened up a lot of design space! This was something Hex did VERY well. They knew they were making a MtG clone, but they weren’t beholden to the same restrictions a physical card game did, and they THRIVED in those areas.

For example, REPLICATORS GAMBIT, a one cost card that creates six copies of a troop (read: creature) that just… could not exist in MtG.

Another example of this was in my favorite archetype in Hex: Mill. Now, I’m not normally a blue player. I’m not a big fan of the ‘you don’t get to play the game’ archetype. Even mill isn’t really my thing. But the way it worked in HexTCG? God I loved it. I wish I could see my opponents faces as they reached a trembling hand out to their bloated, grotesque deck, a cruel mockery of what it once was. They had started the match with only 60 cards, but now it held twice that number. Knowing every draw was more likely to bring their own skittering death out.

…

Maybe I should back up a bit.

Vennen are, in MtG terms, tribal Blue/Black with a focus on control. Specifically an aggressive form of control. Your wincon is still ‘beat your opponent to death’, but the means by which you do it is… spiders.

Lots of Vennen cards work by still allowing your opponent to do the thing that you blocked, but it now creates Spider Eggs in their deck. Lock down a creature as it enters play with ‘Everytime this creature becomes tapped, shuffle 3 spider eggs into your deck’ or ‘Whenever an opponent draws a third card this turn add a spider egg to their deck’ or ‘When this creature is destroyed add a spider egg to your opponent’s deck’ and when they DRAW a spider egg… well… the effect of a spider egg is more or less ‘When this card enters your hand or graveyard, draw/discard another card into that zone and destroy this one. Your opponent creates a Spiderling and puts it in play. “

Spiderlings are 1/1 Unblockable creatures.

The Vennen win con is to just fill your opponent with spiders and then shred them apart once the spiders start hatching. It was a DELIGHTFUL playstyle.

PvE

Hex also features a fairly robust PvE mode with a point crawl encounter map that was quite delightful. There were cards unique to PvE, but all PvP cards were also legal in PvE. In general, all your staples came from PvP and were the same core staples everyone uses to win (they were very generous with handing out common/uncommon PvP cards in the single player mode, which in turn also made Pauper a very popular format), however you also had PvE cards which made up your win cons. PvE cards weren’t balanced as tightly, and allowed to just be dumb overpowered bullshit just because it’s fun to use dumb overpowered bullshit sometimes!

There were also equipment slots that would modify the cards in your deck, turning PvP cards into PvE cards. For example, Replicators Gambit made it so that EVERY copy of that card gained that text.

PvE started with character creation. You would create a character that was one of the 8 races, and one of 6 3 different classes. Warrior, Cleric, or Ranger. I think there was a late update that added Mage but I don’t recall too clearly, and it isn’t document online anymore as far as I can tell!

Each class had a unique talent tree that you could customize and change how you played. Your race determined what colors you could play, and your level determined how many of each rarity you could play.

I played a Vennen Cleric. Cleric’s whole thing was that you would gain Blessings, 0 cost cards that would rise in your deck each turn, and could be played to draw a card as well as additional effects based on your build. My blessings put more eggs in the enemy deck, to the surprise of no one.

As you went from encounter to encounter you would earn new cards to modify your deck, swapping decks between fights. Then there were dungeons, long laborious streaks of a dozen or so encounters, with branching paths and decisions to be made, earning you tons of new packs and equipment and experience to boost your character. One especially fun encounter was crossing a desert with a pack of… I think it was gnomes? There were 20 of them that needed rescuing. The way you rescued them was putting them in your deck, and then leaving the desert through a single combat encounter. Except they were AWFUL. Like 3 cost vanilla 1/1’s level of awful. The more you had in your deck, the harder the encounter became. It was a really nice way to portray the logistical challenge of trying to fight while protecting all these useless tagalongs.

There were plans to even introduce Raids, 3v1 PvE encounters, but they fizzled out as the game got sunset.

The game was good. REALLY good. It relished in the digital design space in a way I haven’t quite seen since then. A few games, like Legends of Runeterra, have come close, but always fall short, and that’s so sad! I DESPERATELY want to play a TCG with this level of customization again!

Luckily that was the end of it. I finally learned the error of my ways, never touched anything ‘always online’ again, and now can live a life without regrets! … except Legends of Runeterra a little bit like I mentioned above but THATS IT! There are no other always online games I have regrets about!

…

ToonTown Online

Okay no, not seriously. I’ve never played toontown. But honestly it looked kinda silly and like a shitpost in video game form. I think it would have been fun to try at some point with a few friends. Not seriously, just to screw around in for a bit.

Never going to get that chance. Just like nearly everyone reading this will never get to play two of my biggest influences that shaped how I think about game design.

Always Online DRM is an insidious beast. It doesn’t just kill games, it kills *archival*. All we have left of these games is a relatively small number of gameplay videos. I was planning on having a lot more pictures in this post of all the interface elements I was talking about as I talked about them, but there just… aren’t any good pictures of them. Even these details are based on my own memory cross referenced with a couple of wikis, and even those were sparse.

Some games can’t feasibly avoid Always Online. MMO’s are a big example. But by adding it into a game that has a single player experience involved, and not making that single player experience a standalone thing on its own, you are destroying any hope that your game will be remembered. It will fade into obscurity. There will never be a cult revival. Your work will be discarded and forgotten and it’s… so incredibly sad to see.

I jokingly titled this section being about ToonTown, but really this section is about Kingdom Hearts: Union X. It was a mediocre and disgustingly predatory gacha. It was horribly managed with horrible issues around localization and it was just… a mess. But it was part of the world of Kingdom Hearts, and it’s story was important and mattered.

The game is no longer playable, but it’s also not entirely lost. The devs created a new version of it, as a gallery to view the cutscenes. The single-player side mode, Dark Road, is also included. The devs didn’t have to do this. They could have gone the same route as Darkspore and HexTCG, and had their work be forgotten. They chose to save it. Not in full, but at least the parts the deemed important.

It also makes me wonder how much this happens in other mediums. Ludology is a pretty new field, and it rarely goes into specific games and their impact on the medium, mostly just focusing on the impacts they have on humanity, rather than the mechanics themselves as these beautiful pieces of art. And it makes me wonder how often this happens with say… film critics. Are there any indie film makers who are deep in the paint of indie films and critique of not just the films themselves, but the very techniques being used, just sitting there going “It’s so upsetting that this big studio managed to do something this beautiful and all of us in the scene recognize it’s beauty, but no one else seems to, and now it’s gone?”

… as I’m writing this I actually realize that this does happen there. It’s how I found out about what became my favorite film of all time, The Man From Earth. It’s a small film that flopped horribly in theaters, and only gained any attention by being pirated by a lot by indies who wanted to talk about it. It’s a good movie, highly recommend. Not for everyone though.

I don’t know. I’m sure I had a point with all this but… seeing it happen again and again and now with streaming services taking stuff down it’s just… I can’t help but seeing not just more and more games, but more and more of EVERY artistic medium ending up in this area. How many digital artists entire portfolios have vanished off the face of the earth because their tumblr got deactivated? How many movies are going to be gone forever when Netflix eventually goes out of business? We can’t even rely on piracy! Many old pieces of media is just lost forever. Just ask the Doctor Who fandom. They probably know more about that than anyone else at this point.

But mostly I just really wish more developers would consider what parts of their games are important, and what kind of legacy they want to leave, instead of just what will generate a short burst of profit, with no care for what happens after.

… I should start doing video essays with how long this got. It’s like some kind of text based video essay. A text essay. Those are a new thing I just invented.

#Darkspore #Spore #Those are the only two tags on this post because those are the only games I talk about don’t worry about it. it’s fine. don’t read further.#HexTCG #Hex: Shards of Fate #Kingdom Hearts: Union X #Always Online DRM #The Man From Earth #I swear to god if anyone tells me I should just play Temo on LoR I will scream #YES I KNOW AND I DO #but also LoR sucks #and also that is missing THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS RANT #the SAME THING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA #maybe not soon #but it WILL die someday #and be gone forever #because it isn’t being preserved #Text Essay

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tailschannel · 5 months

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Sonic to get "several new mobile titles" in the future, according to SEGA management meeting document

The Sonic the Hedgehog series is expected to receive "several new titles" for mobile platforms, SEGA's parent company confirmed in a management meeting early Wednesday.

Apple and Google were both named as "key players" in the mobile sector for SEGA, as the publisher detailed an encompassing transmedia scheme for the blue blur, which will include licencing and collaborations with other third-party properties.

"Several new" mobile games under development

With an established presence thanks to the likes of free apps like Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces Speed Battle, the franchise looks set to dive in the world of mobile gaming, as part of SEGA's future plans.

The publisher did not rule out exclusivity clauses with subscription-based mobile gaming services. In recent days, the publisher signed a contract with Apple to produce Sonic Dream Team, and Netflix announced a mobile port of Sonic Mania Plus for their game subscription service.

No word of a specific timeframe for the aforementioned mobile games, currently in development.

Future Sonic mobile games to adopt Rovio's Beacon toolkit

As part of the mobile expansion, the upcoming slate is expected to adopt "Beacon", an internal development and marketing toolkit powered by machine learning, frequently utilized by Rovio, the Finnish studio behind Angry Birds that SEGA acquired over the summer.

The studio described Beacon as a platform to "build games and get games to market, models to profitably grow and monetize the game and live operations tools to maximize our players’ fun."

The toolkit has been criticized in a number of fan-run Angry Birds forums for incentivizing revenue at the expense of gameplay quality.

SEGA did not disclose if the Beacon platform will extend beyond the present suite of HARDlight mobile games.

More details on SEGA's resurrection of classic hits

SEGA also unveiled these new images and descriptions for the five new games announced at The Game Awards, described as a "power surge" to re-electrify their classic hits, like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio.

Crazy Taxi: Innovative & Fresh Style Driving Action! Cheerful feeling of freedom and fusion of nature and city. Peel out the new stage of Crazy City!

Jet Set Radio: "Counter-Culture" - Tokyo Street Open World! Experience the "rebellion" movement that feels free in a suffocating society. Make friends, increase your fans, and create a movement!

Shinobi: Slay the enemies in the silence of the moment. Run through the world of Shinobi, full of monsters and ninja actions. Grab Oberozuki, the legendary sword and slay evil once more. Your clan and the world are counting on you.

Golden Axe: Warriors arise to subdue the demons! Defeat your enemies with a variety of attacks with swords and magic! The legendary story about the battle axe, Golden Axe is about to begin!

Streets of Rage Revolution: Beloved side-scrolling beat 'em up action series! Take control of one of the ex-officers and make the city a place where people no longer have to walk the "Streets of Rage."

The announcement coincided with SEGA's plans to strengthen their flagship video game brands like Persona and Like a Dragon, and to expand with legacy properties.

(Edit 2:00 pm ET - post updated with new details)

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #the next sonic #sega #gaming #mobile gaming #mobile games #rovio #rovio entertainment #angry birds #crazy taxi #jet set radio #shinobi #golden axe #streets of rage #streets of rage revolution #sega japan #sonic news

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jadagul · 11 months

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I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. Why is it harder for larger countries to have citizens with a high median level of wealth? What makes it harder for a country with the US population vs, say, Japan? I can imagine obvious challenges, but also reasons why larger countries can make their median citizen wealthier more easily. Economies of scale, more chances for innovation that can later be widely adopted, strong institutions having outsized effects. Can you help me understand the logic more?

It's not a stupid question! It's a common but incredibly counterintuitive thing that comes up in statistical comparisons. The short version is: you get more variance with small samples than with large samples.

To start off, let's point out this isn't just theoretical. According to the IMF, the twelve highest GDPs per capita are in this chart:

(If you use a different source the numbers change somewhat but not dramatically so.)

If you rank countries by population, those are rank 122, 163, 118, 134, 162.5, 95, 99, 115, 3, 191, 169, and 103.5. The US is in position 3 and the next-highest is at 95 (out of about 200).

Conversely let's look at the ten most populous nations:

When ranked by GDP per capita, those come out at ranks 73, 127, 8, 98, 138, 144, 87, 128, 56, and 71.

And notice already this looks different: these numbers are mostly in like the middle half, whereas the others were almost all in the bottom half. And that makes sense based on the theoretical argument I'm about to make.

A big country has a lot of people in it. And more than that, it has a lot of places in it. And while those places all have a bunch of stuff in common (like being part of the same country), they also have a bunch of things different from each other. So you can think of the per capita GDP of a big country as, like, averaging together the per capita GPDs of all the regions in it. (And then the per capita GDP of a region is a weighted average of the incomes of all the people in it.)

If you look at a city-state like Singapore or Hong Kong, you're "averaging" together one city. And for a small country like Ireland or Luxembourg, you're averaging one city with a small amount of hinterlands. That means that if that one city is unusually lucky, the whole country is rich.

(And if that one city is unusually unlucky, the whole country is poor. The ten least populated countries on the list that have IMF data have GDP per capita ranks of 146, 119, 95, 9, 152, 60, 106, 16, 134, 52, which are all over the map. None of them are at the very bottom, and I assume that's because cities are richer than non-cities, in general. And also maybe a city-state that's also dirt poor gets swallowed up.)

And if you look at our list of richest countries, you can really see this effect. Ireland is a tax haven for the EU, and traditionally so is San Marino. Singapore is a weirdly-managed outlier city state, as is San Marino (and Hong Kong used to be). Qatar and the UAE are all drafting off of oil revenue, and for that matter so is Norway.

And to drive the point home, let's look at the list of US metro areas by per capita GDP.

San Jose beats every country in the world hollow. San Francisco is tied with the top entries on the list. And our tenth-richest metro area would place fifth on the list of countries by per capita gdp. (Contrast Paris at €60 and Berlin at like €42k, if my quick googling is right.)

And then to drive the point home, look at the top of the list. The richest metro area in the US isn't San Francisco or New York or Los Angeles (which at 18th and $86k doesn't even show up on that list up there, but would still put it at 8th in the world); the richest metro area in the US is some place called Midland TX. It's a small town that sits in the middle of a giant oil field, and as I understand it it's basically a base camp for all the oil work out there. So it has one thing going on, and that thing is super lucrative, and distributed across relatively few people; so it gets the top spot.

And that's why the richest countries are likely to be small.

#politics #economics #statistics

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prue84 · 1 year

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National Treasure instagram: Knitting

Fandom: BBC’s Merlin (post-canon, modern magic) AU AU: National Treasure Series: National Treasure instagram

Even the Once and Future Kings can be talked into knitting.

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With winter looming on England, the Pendragonling needs warm clothes to survive the cold, or so dragonlord Merlin decrees. Through his social, then, he searches for some knitter to travel to New Camelot and knit little Aithusa some wool coats. The challenge is picked up and the willing hero also manages to convince Arthur to give knitting a try. Aithusa is definitely excited to see her dragon papa personally work to make her something.

More about the AU under the cut. (More fanworks from this AU at the links above)

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About the AU It's the 21th century and the existence of magic has been widely known since Guinevere, the last queen of Camelot, lifted the ban and had made Merlin her own advisor. With the centuries the myth of the Once and Future King has grown unchecked: Arthur Pendragon belongs to the category of the great people of history who the most have influenced the world, with the only difference that he will one day return. Magic, for a number of circumstances never verified (possibly a mix of abuse and industrialization), seems like having been drained, leaving only the passive one: charms applied to old houses or objects still works, but new charms cannot be cast and are ineffective. Immortality is a rare gift unavailable to most, but few people belonging to the world Before The Drain still live, the oldest of them born in the Late Renaissance age. Merlin, former wizard and oldest man of the world as the only one alive since the Middle Ages, is considered the world's grumpy uncle, that one parent who is a font of knowledge and tells funny stories about an otherwise serious topic like History but isn't willing to sit down and socialize with the youngsters (which means basically anyone, to him). Told to be always traveling, he imparts his knowledge almost exclusively through his blog, "Merlin's Cave". Unknown to all, though, Merlin has also a second identity under which he lives an almost ordinary life: Gaius de Bois, young professor of Medieval History at the University of Avalon, down-to-heart person, a professor much loved by his students, and, especially "nephew" of the Great Merlin. Arthur Pendragon emerges from the secluded Lake of Avalon and his return is made official by Merlin with a post on his Instagram, a photo about the two halves of a broken coin (with Merlin's and Arthur's profile) reunited. Arthur leads a quiet life, residing in Merlin's cottage on the shores of the lake, with his grumpy (not-so) former servant to protect him from meddlers and fanatics. To preserve and allocate the necessary resources to restore a conducive environment for him and his needs of Middle Ages man, he is given the title of National Treasure that grants him a monthly revenue, total coverage of expenditures and funds to restore the castle of Camelot – castle that Merlin has preserved by magically miniaturizing it and placing it in a snow-less globe. Merlin, through his social media and website, shares with the world the chronicles of how his king is adjusting to the modern times. Arthur is initially followed by paps and generally by the curiosity of the people: it's just Merlin's angry presence (and an endless stream of ordinances) that shelters Arthur from the frenzy although soon it becomes an ordinary sight to see the king going around wearing his armor and sunglasses. When Camelot is restored, it gets the status of Principality within the United Kingdom, a kind of enclave named New Camelot on which Arthur is granted absolute power: initially a city-state enclosed within the strong walls of the citadel, it grows when further lands and pastures are assigned to the principality to assure Camelot's self-sufficiency. Life in New Camelot, per Arthur's choice, doesn't reflect the innovations happened after the king's death, and the citadel will become a haven for people who wish to live a simpler life or simply unplug a bit from the modern times. With time Arthur will fully embrace the perks of modernity, thanks to Merlin (and his money) who spoils him, and he'll even get a driving license (against Merlin's will). But that's another story for another time.

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Notes This manip was prompted by the picture released by Synnov Karlsen on her Instagram Story when they were in Italy to shoot I Medici back in 2018. A couple of days later, the manip was done. There was some text on the fake Instagram post that wasn't completed but the reason I was stuck was because I couldn't decide which version I liked the best between two backgrounds and few different effects/filters applied.

Released as per my goal to clear out my "held back" shit. I wanted to hold this back further but figured I should post it while it's still winter, given the winter subject.

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Tec stuffs (aka Behind The Manip) I recall not being completely satisfied with Aithusa but 1) there's literally two Aithusa pics, so a Merlin manipper must do with what little they've been given and 2) I still haven't learned to apply shadows.

Credits Bradley James in italy from Synnov Karlsen's Instagram Story, 30 October 2018. Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, Stanza del Mappamondo. Picture available at different sites.

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Crossposted Livejournal: prue84.livejournal.com/95609.html Dreamwidth: prue84.dreamwidth.org/87048.html Deviantart: deviantart.com/prue84/art/Knitting-instagram-949286264 (instagram post), deviantart.com/prue84/art/Knitting-photo-949286302 (photo)

#Merlin BBC #Merlin #Arthur Pendragon #Aithusa #Merthur #AUs (Merlin)#AU: National Treasure #Series: National Treasure instagram #Manips #Graphics #||#bbc merlin #emrys #merlin-art #merlin fanart

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sunshinesmebdy · 2 months

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Abundance Meets Strategy: Moon in Taurus Unlocks Financial Growth (April 10th)

April 10th brings a powerhouse lineup of astrological transits that can significantly impact your business and finances. The Moon, our emotional center, spends the day nestled in the grounded and security-seeking sign of Taurus. This transit alone fosters stability and long-term planning. But the magic truly unfolds with a series of powerful aspects — sextiles and a conjunction — that create a potent recipe for financial success. As your resident astrologer and business consultant, I’m here to decode this cosmic dance and show you how to leverage it for abundance!

The Moon in Taurus: Planting Seeds of Security

The Moon’s presence in Taurus creates a fertile ground for financial growth. Here’s how to tap into this energy:

Create a Budget (if you haven’t already): Taurus craves stability. Devote time to analyzing your income and expenses, then create a realistic budget that allows you to save and invest for the future.

Explore Long-Term Investments: The security-oriented Taurus energy aligns well with exploring investment options for your business or personal finances. Conduct thorough research and consider seeking professional advice.

Focus on Sustainability: Taurus thrives on long-term planning. Don’t get caught up in fleeting trends — focus on building a sustainable financial foundation for your business.

Aligning with Abundance: Moon’s Cosmic Connections

The Moon’s dance with other planets amplifies the potential for financial success:

Moon Sextile Mars in Pisces: This supportive aspect brings a surge of optimism and motivation. Pursue your financial goals with renewed energy and confidence.]

Business Implications:

Balancing Practicality and Imagination: The harmonious sextile between the Moon in Taurus and Mars in Pisces allows you to blend practicality with imagination. You can ground your dreams in reality without losing their magical quality.

Steady Progress: You’ll find a sweet spot where you can envision your goals (Pisces) and work towards them steadily (Taurus).

Financial Impact:

Creative Ventures: Innovative solutions for financial challenges can emerge. Explore new revenue streams.

Embrace Intuition: Trust your gut feelings when making financial decisions. Sometimes, seemingly risky ventures hold great potential.

Moon Conjunct Jupiter & Uranus in Taurus: This powerful conjunction is a dream come true for ambitious individuals! Expect opportunities for expansion, increased income, and breakthroughs in your financial strategies. Embrace innovative ideas and don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone.

Business Implications:

Abundance and Growth: Jupiter and Uranus together amplify expansion. Expect opportunities for growth, promotions, and exciting new ventures.

Resourcefulness: Tap into your network and community. Collaborate with others to achieve mutual success.

Financial Impact:

Wealth Creation: Real estate, investments, and self-employment can yield profits.

Independence: Consider innovative approaches to resource management. Break free from conventional norms.

Discipline is Your Ally: Moon Sextile Saturn in Pisces

The Moon also forms a harmonious sextile with Saturn in Pisces, injecting a dose of discipline and responsibility into the mix. This translates to:

Smart Spending: While the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction encourages growth, Saturn’s influence ensures you manage your newfound abundance wisely.

Sticking to the Plan: The discipline of Saturn helps you stay committed to your budget and long-term financial goals, even when faced with temptations.

Building a Strong Foundation: This sextile fosters the creation of a secure financial foundation for your business or personal finances.

Business Implications:

Balancing Stability and Empathy: Grounded Taurus meets intuitive Pisces. Use practicality to manifest spiritual ideals.

Responsibility and Compassion: You may feel a responsibility towards the collective or less fortunate.

Financial Impact:

Practical Manifestation: Use common sense to turn dreams into reality.

Embrace Change: Trust the flow of life. Let go of material attachments when necessary.

Remember: This is a powerful day for attracting abundance and solidifying your financial future. Embrace the grounded energy of Taurus, combine it with a dash of innovative thinking, and leverage the supportive aspects to manifest your financial dreams. With a strategic approach and a dose of discipline, this can be a turning point on your path to financial security!

#business horoscopes #business astrology #astrology updates #astro #astrology facts #astro notes #astrology community #astrology #astro girlies #astro posts #astrology observations #astropost #astro observations #astro community

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artisticdivasworld · 3 months

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Steering Success: The Reskilling Route for Independent Trucking Business Owners

This post is a continuation of a couple of previous posts here and here on outsourcing. We do not want anyone to think that outsourcing will cause people to lose their jobs. It can, but it doesn’t have to do so. Employees are the hidden goldmine of employers, and all efforts should be made to keep staff happy and productive in your business. In the fast-evolving landscape of the trucking…

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capitalism-and-analytics · 1 year

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The primary cause of the current economic state isn't inflation, though that is the excuse corporate entities use, but rather the fact that people don't have enough money to live. You see, an economy only works when money is moving. But the rich don't spend it. They hoard it. Money in the hands of the people on the other hand does get spent and moved, because people spend it to live. By refusing to put restriction on corporations, who by their nature as capitalistic entities want to move as much wealth in as few hands as possible, you make the economy worse. The truth is, the current economic state can only be blamed on the current economic philosophy. And that's capitalism.

Although I agree with your opening statement that inflation is not the primary cause of the current economic state, I disagree with the remainder of your argument.

But the rich don't spend it. They hoard it.

That is incorrect. This idea that the rich have some Scrooge McDuck style of vault where they are hoarding all this cash that is inaccessible to the rest of the economy is a blatant fallacy.

Majority of rich people fall into one of three categories:

Individuals who actively invest (i.e. spend) their capital in businesses, startups, and ventures that create jobs and drive innovation.

Individuals who let asset managers invest (i.e. spend) their capital to grow their wealth.

Individuals who save most of their capital in financial institutions and those financial institutions use those assets to invest the capital or loan out the capital to earn themselves a profit in exchange for securing the capital. This is the primary form of revenue generating activities done by banks.

Money in the hands of the people on the other hand does get spent and moved, because people spend it to live.

This is actually a very interesting point as it is very controversial and widely debated between economists for which is better for the economy to prosper: poor people's spending habits or rich people's spending habits.

Both rich and poor spending can contribute to economic growth and welfare, but they have different impacts and dynamics. While rich spending can drive economic expansion and job creation, poor spending supports local businesses and enhances the well-being of individuals within lower-income brackets. It is important to strike a balance and ensure that both groups have opportunities to participate in economic activities and benefit from a thriving economy.

[...] who by their nature as capitalistic entities want to move as much wealth in as few hands as possible, you make the economy worse.

That is incorrect. Their nature is to behave and act in pursuit of the self-interests of their private owners. If the self-interests of those individuals is to move as much wealth in as few hands as possible, then yes, but that is not a inherent characteristic or perquisite to operating in a capitalist system. Moreover, the same behavior can and does occur within socialist systems too.

The main difference though is that those self-interests are controlled by private individuals in capitalist systems and by the collective public in socialist systems.

The truth is, the current economic state can only be blamed on the current economic philosophy. And that's capitalism.

There has never been an absolute capitalist system [or absolute socialist system], but merely mixed systems. Trying to generalize any macro-economy to a singular economic philosophy is naïve and lacks critical assessment. If you wish to blame something on a capitalist philosophy, which there is plenty, then may I recommend you focusing on far more specific behaviors or policies?

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