Tag: games

Clown World vs Gamma World

The Kurgan observes the growing number of similarities between Clown World and two of the science fiction role-playing games of the early 1980s.

Gamma World had:

  • Purebloods (aka pure strain humans) and we have those.
  • Mutants, and we have those too now, thanks to the genetic serum murder juice, except in Gamma World at least most of the times they have some super-powers. While in this version they only het defects and most likely an early death.
  • Mutated animals, and again, we have those for similar reasons to the mutated humans

But Gamma World has almost unlimited freedom. You walk around with whatever weapons you want, exploring the mutated wasteland. And we definitely do not have that in this reality.

Paranoia also had mutants, and occasionally the mutation could be useful, but more often than not it was a reason to be executed by the schizophrenic computer that ran the whole underground complex your unfortunate genetically modified clones found themselves in.

It also had various factions, communists, transhumanists, def leperd fans, and others, all vying for power and trying to eliminate every other faction. Layered over that was the nominal career of the player character which… you guessed it, was trying to out-do and survive all the others player characters. The game was so deadly that each character had six clones, as these died in spectacular fashion and often were executed by order of the all-powerful computer.

The premise of the game was that due to some catastrophic war, humans had gone underground into Alpha Complex where competing high level programmers all shoved their versions of utopia into the mainframe running things in the large underground Alpha Complex. This rendered the Computer essentially schizophrenic and paranoid, with ugly consequences for anyone that came into contact with it, which was daily due to the fact that the computer ran most of the complex. Reproduction was done exclusively by cloning and if a character started to develop normal feelings as a result of being off the hormone filled soylent green they were fed, it was a capital offence.

Well, we are not quite underground yet, but the totalitarian control under a schizophrenic “elite” who think they know best and to whom we are all subject to varying degrees is certainly coming at is fast. As is the war on anything and everything natural.

I was more of a Traveller man myself, but I did own a set of the original Gamma World books even though I never had the opportunity to play it. I never read or played Paranoia, but based on the Kurgan’s description, it does appear that Clown World is headed squarely in that direction, with the exciting addition of a reality-defying demonic element.

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Evil Wizards

They destroy what they cannot control to their liking:

For the last 12 years, my company Autarch has published my game Adventurer Conqueror King System under the terms of the Open Game License (OGL) 1.0. For the last 5 years, ACKS has been my full-time job.

Now, Wizards of the Coast, in what I can only describe as an act of perfidious treachery, has decided to retroactively deauthorize the OGL 1.0 and offer up a new Open Game License 1.1 to replace it.

What does this new license mean? Where do we go from here? Before we go further, please note that while I am a trained attorney (Harvard Law magna cum laude, in fact), I’m not a practicing intellectual property specialist. My thoughts should not be construed as legal advice about what you should do. These are just my thoughts about the situation Autarch has now found itself in, and what we need to do.

Can They Really Do That?!
When people learn that WOTC is deauthorizing the OGL, the first question they ask is “can they really do that?” It’s a fair question. After all, for more than 20 years we’ve all relied on the OGL to be irrevocable.

But the question isn’t whether they can do. They are doing it. Right now, on our watch. No, the question is “who is going to stop them from doing it?”

And the answer might be “no one.”

If you’re under the illusion that we live in a country with a court system that rewards the righteous, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. The American justice system is pay-to-play, and the amount you have to pay is unfathomable to those who haven’t gone through it. I consulted with one of New York’s top IP litigators last week to find out how much money I’d have to raise via GoFundMe to fight Wizards. When I asked him if $100,000 would be enough, he laughed. He said I’d need $500,000 to even have a chance of summary judgment, and $4 million for a trial. Wizards has a war chest measured in millions and will fight this out for 4-6 years.

Imagine if WOTC sued Autarch claiming that my game Ascendant was violating their copyright. Ascendant is a d100 superhero game that has nothing in common with D&D and uses no language from the SRD. WOTC would have legitimate claim whatsoever. If we had $4,000,000 to fight, we’d certainly win. But… we don’t have the money. So, we’d lose.

In real life courtroom dramas, the good guys don’t win. The rich guys win.

He’s not wrong. Even if you win, you’re probably not getting your legal fees paid by the losing side. This is a devastating blow to RPG game developers and marks the end of a golden age of game development.

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Foreigners Defend Fake Democracy

Clown World has obviously found a playbook it likes.

Two years ago our Capitol was attacked by fanatics, now we are watching it happen in Brazil.

Solidarity with Lula and the Brazilian people.

Democracies around the world must stand united to condemn this attack on democracy.

Bolsonaro should not be given refuge in Florida.

It would be more accurate to say that fake democracies around the world must stand united to condemn popular protests against stolen democracy.

These clowns are going to be in for a real surprise if they continue engaging in war against Russia. The only thing that is preventing the US Capitol – there is no “us”, Ilhan – half the cities on the East Coast from resembling Mariupol is that Vladimir Putin and Xi Xinping don’t see a direct conflict with the US military as furthering their objectives yet.

But the time does appear to be drawing nigh, probably because the US think tanks, which are literally always wrong, asserts the US military will win a war over Taiwan with China due to their simulations.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report, titled ‘The First Battle of the Next War,’ estimates that the US would lose at least two aircraft carriers and that 3,200 American troops would be killed in three weeks of combat, according to CNN, which viewed an advanced copy.

The simulations were run 24 times. Taiwan survived as an autonomous entity in most scenarios, but with heavy losses to all parties. “The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of service members,” the report predicts.

China’s navy would be left “in shambles” and Beijing could lose 10,000 troops, 155 combat aircraft and 138 major ships.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s military would be “severely degraded” and left to defend an island “without electricity and basic services.” Japan could also lose approximately 100 aircraft and 26 warships as US bases on its territory come under attack from China.

Perhaps they’re right, for once, but I very much doubt it. I would be absolutely willing to bet that the variables utilized don’t even begin to account for all of the current supply and special forces shortages due to the active support being provided for Ukraine. The simulation obviously also didn’t include North Korea attacking South Korea to further dilute the US military’s resource once the invasion of Taiwan begins. This is likely an optimistic scenario which will be used to justify a) more money for the Navy, b) a draft, c) continued belligerence on the part of US foreign policy, and d) prevent the Taiwanese from striking a Hong Kong-style deal with the Xi administration.

The simulation report can be downloaded here. I’ll read it soon and review it on the Darkstream. Notice that the summary tends to confirm my prior expectations.

CSIS developed a wargame for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan and ran it 24 times. In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule. Victory is therefore not enough. The United States needs to strengthen deterrence immediately.

What I’d like to see is a simulation that accounts for China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran all acting in concert. Because that is what I expect to see happen when WWIII expands and moves into a more active phase.

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Trust the Grandmaster

Especially when he’s a world champion. The cheating accusations made by the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlson, have been substantially supported by a 72-page investigative report by Chess.com. The entire report can be downloaded here. (PDF)

Hans Niemann, the 19-year-old American grandmaster who last month was accused of cheating by World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen after a shocking upset, was found to have “likely cheated” more than 100 times, according to an investigation by Chess.com, the world’s largest online chess platform.

The investigation, a report from which was seen by the Wall Street Journal, found Niemann likely “received illegal assistance” in more than 100 online chess matches that took place as recently as 2020 when he was 17 years old, allegations that contradict his earlier claims that he only cheated on several occasions as a young teenager.

A letter sent to Niemann by Chess.com’s chief chess officer Danny Rensch last month detailed how Niemann’s suspicious moves tended to coincide with Niemann opening up new screens on his computer, which could indicate that Niemann was using a chess engine, according to the Journal. Niemann “privately confessed” to the allegations–which included cheating in chess games where prize money was awarded–and was banned from the site, according to the Journal.

While the Chess.com investigation largely focused on Niemann’s online games, the report noted that his rise in rankings for in-person chess was “statistically extraordinary” and that specific games may merit further investigation (the sport’s international governing body, FIDE, is conducting a separate investigation).

You can’t hide the math. I was certain that Niemann was cheating the moment that Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura went over some of the statistical analysis being provided by data scientists around the world on his YouTube channel.

One thing that I found interesting about the scandal was the way that Niemann was defended by chess Gammas on Reddit. They were vehemently accusing Carlson of being insecure, a poor loser, and insisting that Niemann couldn’t possibly be guilty of cheating because it was theoretically possible that he was, in fact, the most rapidly improving world-class-level chess player in history.

Which tells us that it isn’t merely jocks and celebs – however minor – that Gammas hate, but elite performance and status as well. It also demonstrates their instinctive inclination toward dishonesty; they would literally prefer for the world chess champion to be a confirmed cheater than be a paragon of legitimate excellence.

UPDATE: This quote from the report is nothing less than astonishing for those of us who can remember the first time Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997:

The best humans play at an Elo rating of 2800. “Stockfish,” the most powerful chess engine, has an estimated rating of more than 3500. In a theoretical match between World Champion Magnus Carlsen vs. Stockfish, we estimate that it is most likely that Magnus Carlsen would lose every single game—no wins and no draws.

While we know his Elo rating is fraudulent, one can’t help but wonder what Niemann’s ELoW rating is.

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Cheating and Chess

I know nothing of the accused, but as a longtime online game player and game developer, I have absolutely no doubt that the world champion is correct:

World champion Magnus Carlsen on Monday broke his silence on the scandal that has shaken the chess world, explicitly accusing 19-year-old American grandmaster Hans Moke Niemann of cheating for the first time since their controversial meeting at the Sinquefield Cup this month.

In a statement posted to his social media accounts, Carlsen cited Niemann’s unusual progress through the chess ranks and his surprisingly relaxed behavior when they played in St. Louis.

“I believe that Niemann has cheated more—and more recently—than he has publicly admitted,” Carlsen wrote. “His over the board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn’t tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do.”

Niemann didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Carlsen’s statement. He had earlier denied any allegations of impropriety in over-the-board chess, though he confessed to cheating on two occasions in online games. Niemann chalked those up as youthful errors, but Chess.com saw fit to ban him from the platform.

Chess.com this month also indicated Niemann wasn’t being forthright about the breadth of his cheating, saying in a statement that it had shared evidence with Niemann about his ban that “contradicts his statement regarding the amount and seriousness of his cheating on Chess.com.”

In Carlsen’s statement, he said he considered withdrawing from the Sinquefield Cup when Niemann was invited to participate, but he chose to play anyway. Carlsen later resigned a game against Niemann in another event after making just a single move. “So far I have only been able to speak with my actions, and those actions have stated clearly that I am not willing to play chess with Niemann,” he said.

I don’t believe it’s possible to eliminate cheating from online gaming. I first noticed the problem when playing VASL by email; my record in face-to-face and live online games was significantly better than in play-by-email (PBEM) games. I even did a statistical analysis that confirmed my suspicions; while my average dice rolls were the same in my live online games and my PBEM games and in line with statistical norms, my opponent’s average rolls were a full point lower in PBEM games than in live online games and than statistical norms would indicate.

What these cheaters were doing was playing the saved game, recording the play, then stopping when they got a result they didn’t like, reloading the game, and replaying it. While most of their moves were honest, enough key rolls just happened to go their way to give them enough of an edge to win.

In like manner, it wasn’t hard to tell the cheaters with targeting programs in online shooters. One rapid and improbable headshot is credible, five in a row are not. Unfortunately, while there has been some progress on this front over the last 10 years, most game developers are unwilling to ruthlessly apply statistical models to determine which players are cheating and punish them accordingly.

So, it’s good that champion players like Carlsen are not only willing to refuse to play the cheaters, but are willing to call them out for their cheating. And what a flex on the part of the champion, to walk away from the game, give up the points, and go on to win the tournament anyhow.

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The Importance of Bedsheets

Chris Roberts has officially become the Marcel Proust of game designers:

Star Citizen has been in development for well over a decade now, during which time it has raised more than $450 million in crowdfunding, and if you’re wondering why it’s still in an alpha state after all that time and money, the latest update from developer Cloud Imperium Games might hold a clue.

It all comes down to something called “bedsheet deformation,” which is exactly what it sounds like: Ensuring that blankets on beds are mussed up accurately, just like they would be in real life. This is important because the “sleep and bed relaxation” element of Squadron 42, the singleplayer portion of Star Citizen, was recently updated so NPCs are now able to find and enter their beds, and then sleep until they’re scheduled to get up.

“We knew early on that, to hit the fidelity we expect for Sq42, we would need to do some R&D on bedsheet deformation,” the AI Content team explained, apparently straight-faced. “This work is currently underway and, if successful, will allow the AI to deform their sheets when entering, exiting, or sleeping inside them. This is a challenging assignment and expands the complexity of the feature. For example, what happens to the sheets if the AI needs to exit the bed in an emergency?”

“what the actual fuck lmao this game was supposed to be out years ago and they’re implementing fucking BEDSHEET DEFORMATION?? I’m done lol” – torvi97

“R&D on bedsheet deformation….for a game that is 10 years overdue. That’s the ‘fidelity’ that players are waiting for? I’m not sure about the rest of you, but this is a feature I can safely say we could wait for the patch in 2083.” – InconspicuousBastard

“Is this a joke? No wonder they can’t finish this thing. Pointless feature creep at its most extreme.” – Valerian_II

“How about just GETTING THE GODDAMN GAME OUT THE DOOR before worrying about how a fricking BEDSHEET will deform.” – BotdogX

Well, I know that I, for one, would not want to see improperly deformed bedseets in my game.

My gamedev mentor, a VP at Sega and Konami, among other companies, and I used to joke about what would be the worst possible 3D action game. We settled on REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST 3D: The Search for the Cooler Side of the Pillow.

It never occurred to us that anyone, let alone the legendary Chris Roberts, would actually attempt to build the game.

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The Minarian Legends

The Minarian Legends represent the collected stories about the many great kingdoms and celebrated heroes of Minaria, a continent of epic adventure. In these pages are presented the histories of the many kingdoms, heroes, and tribes that comprise a fantasy world full of merciless war, powerful magic, and intrepid adventure, the world of the classic 1979 TSR wargame, Divine Right.

The ancient tomes of the Minarian past have been mined to provide readers with the backstory of many kingdoms and heroes of the world of Divine Right. Among the latter are royalty, thieves, warriors, priests, adventurers, treasure hunters, werewolves, dragons, assassins, conquerors, wizards, rogues, barbarians, and pirates.

This comprehensive edition of Minarian legends offers the largest and most expanded collection of Minarian tales ever told, many of which are presented here for the first time by author Glenn Rahman, the designer of Divine Right.

Now available from Castalia House at Castalia Direct and Barnes and Noble, among other places.

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Attn: Developers

[Redacted] Games, a Castalia House subsidiary, is looking for technical volunteers for these projects:

Project 1: Turn-Based Unity Game Based on a Popular Board Game from the Early ‘80s

This project is running now. The online version of the [redacted] board game is in progress. We could use any of the following:

Developer familiar with Unity
C# developers
Developer familiar with authoritative networking
Developer with knowledge of turn-based AI

This team meets (remotely) at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time at least once a week.

Project 2: [redacted] Games, Skunkworks Division

Project 2 is prototyping and proof-of-concept work. This project is for you to get your hands dirty with concept proofing. The current goal is to produce small, working examples of cutting-edge game design and technical proof-of-concepts.

The initial project is a single-player RPG coded in C/C++ and the occasional Assembler.

We need:

Game Designer: You have professional game design experience. You like RPGs. Your goal is to provide a game direction for the following team, under the direction of the lead game designer.
Technical Program Manager (Game Technology Analyst): A TPM that can compile a list of open-source game technologies and licensed tech, keep it current, and advise everyone of the pros and cons of each. Example: Is the Unreal 5.0 engine the best for this project if we want cutting-edge AI? You tell us.
Game Architect (Speech Synthesis):  Voice Inflection based on emotional and programmed environmental attributes isn’t something you can pull off the shelf. If you’re a C++ SuperCoder willing to blaze a new trail, this volunteer position is for you. The Speech Synthesis Architect will need to use a combination of research and prototyping, marching towards using synthesis in such a way that people can’t tell if its voice acted or not
Game Architect (AI): Work with the TPM Tech Analyst to evaluate current AI in the games industry and make recommendations. Game AI has gone backward, but a small number of companies, such as Cloud Imperium Games, are blazing new trails. You will have input on all fundamental game decisions, from which engine to use to the data model needed to support AI development
Environmental Lead Artist: Work with the TPM Tech Analyst and game designers to establish a game environment for prototyping and proof-of-concept
Character Model Artist: create 3-D characters to use in tech demos
Producer: Run a multi-year all-volunteer effort using open-source software with a team spread across a planet! Must be able to tell the Alpha Dog Producer that he’s barking up the wrong tree on occasion
Alpha Dog Game Producer: You’re an Alpha and a Gamer. Your ultimate goal is to produce a spectacular game that everyone can work on games full-time and feed their families. You will be a hero!
DevOps Engineer: Work with a team spread all over the globe in implementing a code repository, CI/CD pipeline(s), and various tools everyone knows this team will need but hasn’t thought about yet
C/C++ coders: Indicate your interest as a game developer on the skunkworks team, and we’ll get back to you

Important Notice

All these positions are volunteer. Your only reward may be a credit in a game or a LinkedIn reference. However, we track the time everyone puts into the project if it makes money and payouts are appropriate. The current consolidation in the AAA game studio market will not make better games. That’s going to be up to us.

Email faceless.producer@redacted-games.com if these volunteer projects interest you.

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Only Fools Trust Science

Science doesn’t even rise to the level of accuracy attained by gamers playing games:

Apart from a minority of professional gamers, speedrunning is a hobby, and the community is moderated by volunteers. Science is, well, science: a crucially important endeavor that we need to get right, a prestige industry employing hundreds of thousands of paid, dedicated, smart people, submitting their research to journals run by enormously profitable publishing companies.

Perhaps the very status of science is what makes its practitioners reluctant to pursue fraudsters: Not only do scientists find it difficult to imagine that their peers or colleagues could be making up the data, but questioning a suspect data set could result in anything from extended frustration and social awkwardness to the destruction of someone’s career. You can see why so many scientists, who hope for a quiet life where they can pursue their own research, aren’t motivated to grasp the nettle.

But the consequences of ignoring fraud can be drastic too, and whole evidence bases, sometimes for medical treatments, can be polluted by fraudulent studies. The entire purpose of the scientific endeavor is brought into question if its gatekeepers—the reviewers and editors and others who are supposed to be the custodians of scientific probity—are so often presented with evidence of fraud and so often fail to take action.

If unpaid Minecraft mods can produce a 29-page mathematical analysis of Dream’s contested run, then scientists and editors can find the time to treat plausible fraud allegations with the seriousness they deserve. If the maintenance of integrity can become such a crucial interest for a community of gaming hobbyists, then it can be the same for a community of professional researchers. And if the speedrunning world can learn lessons from so many cases of cheating, there’s no excuse for scientists who fail to do the same.

Not only is scientistry – the profession of science – entirely corrupt, but the massive extent of its corruption has rendered a) the knowledge base unreliable and b) cast every claim of an application of scientody – the scientific method – into intrinsic doubt.

The corollary to this is that anyone demanding that one “trust the science” is not only engaging in rhetoric, but is either doing so in ignorance or for the purposes of deceit.

Scientists don’t catch fraud because they don’t want to. It’s not in their interest and it has not been for decades. Never trust science. There is a word for the kind of science you can trust, and it is a distinct subset of science, being comprised of a hypothesis that has not only been tested, but applied in practice.

Trust God and engineering.

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