#there is no reason for these games to be released within 1.5 years of each other

[v--nus]

why the CoD fandom is obsessed with throwing away money on every single new carbon copy release that’s just a cashgrab is beyond me.

[hermette-historian]

It's important to look deeply at the near-death experiences that the series has had in order to understand how it has grown, why it has changed the way that it did, and the reasoning behind some of the decisions that the members continue to make to this day. In looking at history we also find the answers to some of the greatest mysteries of the series, as well as some of the most frequently asked and vaguely answered questions. With that in mind:

What Really Killed Hermitcraft Season 1?

Episode 1: Death of a Bachelor

If you ask Xisuma why the first season ended, he will say in no uncertain terms that it was the loss of their founder and leader GenerikB. And he's right.

GB's final episode of Hermitcraft aired on April 20, 2013; the same date as Jessassin's, though that seems to have been pure coincidence. In it he states that he is leaving because while he is still in love with the game, the vanilla version just..wasn't doing it for him anymore. He was done with that world, ready for something fresh and exciting to be added, and to him that meant mods. To this day, he still plays modded Minecraft over on Twitch! But after he left Hermitcraft, he never really went back to vanilla. More importantly, he also implies that while the server may go on in his absence, he finds it unlikely to continue long term-true to his prediction, the series floundered without direction for another month before Xisuma uploaded his final video on June 2 of that year. Hermitcraft officially died with the disappearance of its namesake.

Here's where we look deeper, because while GB's departure may have been the straw that broke the camel's back it was by no means the only reason the season ended. Just digging deeper into each of his reasons for leaving, we can see the storm brewing as far back as November of the previous year.

Episode 2: The Call of Cthulhu

What happened in November, you ask? Modded Minecraft happened. More specifically, the extremely popular modpack Feed the Beast was released beta at that time, and the Hermits at large wasted zero time in getting in on the action. There was within a month a dedicated "Hermitcraft Feed the Beast" server, from which a few hermits were added to the vanilla counterpart retroactively: Juicetra and Skyzm among them. Other members included Hypno, Topmass, DMAC, and of course GB...FTB quickly consumed the working lives of the Hermits; it was the first experience many of them had with a real modpack, and it introduced mechanics they could only dream about having in the survival game (like flying, for instance). Content on the vanilla server began to slow down. It didn't help that none of the hermits were full time creators in 2013-their time was limited, and when they were able to spend it doing the things they wanted to do that ended up being FTB. Some members such as DMAC promised more vanilla content once the craze was over, but the "craze" never stopped and he ended up going full months without putting out vanilla episodes. The FTB server had its own issues and ended up dying of technical problems and rollbacks later down the line, but it alone played a massive part first in boosting Hermitcraft Vanilla, then slowly choking it to death.

But there is one more unsung murderer when it comes to the grave demise of Hermitcraft Season 1: the game itself.

Episode 3: If I Die Young

When Dinnerbone joined Hermitcraft in summer 2012, he requested that they begin to update through snapshots instead of waiting for full releases-presumably so that he could use them as a test server. The decision to honor his suggestion, however, was a divisive one. Some members jumped on the opportunity! GB and Red3yz in particular were beyond excited to test everything from new terrain generation to redstone mechanics. Others like Xisuma and Biffa were more cautious, preferring to wait until the game was ready to play in a way that would be fulfilling to them. Still others-Joe Hills among them-were excited at first...then fell quickly into the opposite camp when half of their house spontaneously went missing and occasionally they couldn't craft anything with the wooden planks. The snapshots proved to be glitchy as all hell and an administrative nightmare, creating little but endless stress for GB on admin duty and Hypno in the world edit repair department. But they stuck with it! Hermitcraft continued to update through every single snapshot from 1.3 until 1.5, each new week bringing a new set of uncertainties and challenges to overcome. For a group of creators that were already fatigued with vanilla and focused on something more interesting, it's easy to see how this kind of thing would force a divide between them and the server...nobody wants to create content on a game that's unnecessarily difficult on a good day.

Of course, there were other little things that drove the Hermits away from its original phase. A big one for GB that goes unmentioned was definitely the state of his base: the original that he spent nearly a year building was burnt to the ground during the conflict with TEA and redone in creative mode by Topmass and the Pimp my Minecraft team. Not only did this cause controversy among the fans like you wouldn't believe, it left little for him to do in the world where his own creations were largely gone altogether. Other Hermits like Jess ran out of inspiration or burned out in a more typical fashion.

Thus in June of 2013, just over a year after its original inception, Hermitcraft died.

On the third day it rose again, dragged by the ears near single-handedly out of the grave by the person with the most determination to see it succeed. A new era began of rebuilding on a solid foundation, with dignity intact and lessons learned, a stronger brand, a clear distinction, and no snapshots. Eventually, they would have a new leader. But these things will all take time.

Hermitcraft beta was doomed by being built on sand instead of rock. It was strangled by the game itself, a victim of circumstance and false promises and opportunity. It died and came back stronger. And once every year or two, it feels the need to do so again.

Here's to Season 8, and many more to come.

[screechthemighty]

Okay, so, I’m gonna do ONE single solitary hot take on the response T*m made to the “headcase” situation and then I promise I won’t talk about it more. Full version under a cut for length, tl;dr is that Apex Legends is not a storytelling medium that lends itself to the kind of character growth needed for the concern in question to be adequately addressed.

Normally, I would be okay with his defense (a few people have put it in the tag if you want to read it) in literally any other context. What he’s saying at its core is that characters can grow and change and move past bad habits and honestly, I agree! It’s perfectly fine (within reason) to give characters negative traits and mentalities that they learn to overcome as the plot progresses. That’s a natural part of writing and character growth.

However. I think the problem is that when you’re dealing with a serious subject matter, like, say, abelism, that’s the kind of character growth that needs substantial fleshing out and serious care because it hurts actual people. And that’s where the issue is, because, well...Apex Legends isn’t set up for that kind of character development. Yes, Apex has given us more plot in 1.5 years than Overwatch has in five, but they can only tell so much story in weekly segments that take ten minutes or less to consume. This means that the kind of subtle character growth that leads from “calling a character ‘headcase’ to her face” to “I see the error of my ways and will no longer be cruel to the woman with psychosis” is going to be, at best, abrupt, and at worst basically nonexistent outside of “and suddenly, this character wasn’t abelist anymore!”

For reference, it took Daryl Dixon like...three seasons of The Walking Dead to get to a point where I found him correcting Merle about Glenn being Korean believable. Let’s be generous and say that was 30 episodes between his first appearance and that moment. That’s 30 hours of television with him as a secondary character. Apex season five’s plot was under one hour total. This season’s plot is a seven page comic where I don’t even know if Bangalore is in it (people who have read the leaks: do not tell me in the reblogs, or tag it if you do bring it up, pls). We’d need 29 more seasons, which would take about 7.25 years if my math is right, with every one of them having Bangalore and her viewpoints being touched on, to get that same level where I’d believe she’s genuinely no longer abelist towards Wraith. Same goes for Elliott not saying insensitive shit. Even if we can believe they’d have that kind of character growth in one season’s worth of TV, that’s still anywhere from eight to thirteen seasons (if we do it based of Netflix standards for a season), and that ASSUMES each season gets one hour of lore plot with either character having at least moderate focus.

I’m sorry, but in a cast of 14 characters (and growing!) with a lot of plot potential, limited opportunities for storytelling (especially directly in-game, like they can release novels and stuff but then we’re getting into Star Wars EU territory and that’s a post all on its own), and the potential that, at any given moment, a season could be derailed the way s6 was or the game could end...that’s not happening. It’s just not. And this isn’t a dig at the writers. The medium is inherently not equipped to handle that kind of storytelling.

What I’m getting at is, yeah, characters can be flawed, characters should be flawed, learning not to be a shithead is a valid character plot. But since the medium has a lot of constraints that other forms don’t, I don’t think that Bangalore learns not to be abelist towards Wraith or Mirage learns not to use casually abelist language is the kind of plot that will work for that kind of thing. And with there being disabled/mentally ill/neurodivergent people in the fandom, I think, much like how they didn’t stick by Caustic being a racist for the comfort of their Asian players, it would be better to focus on other negative aspects of their character (Mirage being selfish, Bangalore being a bootlicker) which are easier to resolve within the confines of the medium and don’t make people uncomfortable.

...I’m an English major, can you tell?

[officialotakudome]

New Post has been published on Otaku Dome | The Latest News In Anime, Manga, Gaming, And More

New Post has been published on https://otakudome.com/reviews/kingdom-hearts-melody-of-memory-review/

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory Review

Step up to the beat in the latest spinoff from the Kingdom Hearts series; Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. Following the events of Kingdom Hearts III: REmind, the game has Kairi going into her own heart in an attempt to find Sora who supposedly sacrificed his life for hers at the end of the events in Kingdom Hearts III. Kairi now in a deep sleep must retrace her memories as she searches for Sora’s own heart.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a 2020 rhythm action game, it is developed by Square Enix Creative & Indieszero, it is published by Square Enix. It is currently available on Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

Editor’s Note: Near complete to complete spoilers for Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory may be present within this review. Slight spoilers for Kingdom Hearts III and Kingdom Hearts III: REmind may also be present within this review.

Kingdom Hearts changes the tune of battle in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.

In what honestly only felt like natural progression, Kingdom Hearts finally has a rhythm game. The music featured in Kingdom Hearts has (pun intended) always been one of it’s most memorable elements. It sort of feels like this should have been done ages ago, but the same could be said with a Kingdom Hearts fighting game. Which coincidentally was the original plan for Dissidia Final Fantasy, yes it was initially meant to be a Kingdom Hearts spinoff, but Tetsuya Nomura felt uncomfortable seeing Disney characters legit fighting each other. Eventually, Nomura would be more comfortable exploring Kingdom Hearts into different genres and even gave a Dissidia inspired mode to Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. And as many probably expected, it should come to no surprise that Kingdom Hearts as a rhythm is an almost effortless adaptation.

Play out the much beloved Kingdom Hearts OST in ‘Melody of Memory’.

THE GOOD: Taking place after REmind, Sora sacrifices his heart & thus his life for Kairi’s own revival having been killed by Xehanort prior to their victory over him. Kairi goes into a slumber Ansem the Wise who’s being aided by a few of the Nobodies that recovered their hearts at the end of Kingdom Hearts III. As she sleeps Kairi enters her own heart in order to investigate clues into finding Sora through memories of herself and Sora. There she encounters an illusion of Xehanort who nearly takes over her before she’s protected by the remnants of Sora’s heart proving he may still be alive somewhere. Kairi (being controlled by Sora) defeats Xehanort and as a reward the latter helps Kairi by reminding her of her childhood. Kairi awakens and tells Ansem about her findings and Xehanort’s “other side” clue. This is apparently a fictional world existing outside of their own reality according to Ansem. Kairi & Riku learn about a girl from Other Side who can currently be found in Final World, after Fairy Godmother takes them to the girl. Riku tells her of his dream of Shibuya who determines that it’s a city from her home world Quadratum. Riku opens a portal to Quadratum to continue the search for Sora as Kairi returns to their reality to finish her keyblade training now guided by Master Aqua. Yen Sin tasks Donald & Goofy to tell their friends of the current situation & Mickey to Scala ad Caelum to investigate the revived ancient Keyblade Masters & their possible connection to Quadratum.

For the first time in series history Kairi takes over as lead protagonist (sort of).

Kairi being the focus of the story is a nice change of past, feels like we’ve delved plenty into the individual stories of Sora, Riku, King Mickey, and the BBS crew. While she’s not exactly 100% playable (which is a bit of a ball buster) she’s clearly the main star of about 80% of the game’s plot. It’s mostly about her attempting to revive Sora, but we do get more backstory into her past which is always neat. I think Kairi is one of the weakest characters in terms of development despite her popularity and the fact that people have wanted to see her wield a keyblade for several years. A full on 2.8 like experience with Kairi training under Aqua would be a neat parallel to the actual 2.8 that featured a playable Aqua traversing the World of Darkness prior to the ending of Kingdom Hearts 1. The combat is like any other rhythm. The goal is to time the on-screen button commands within the limit to press said button command. In ‘Memory of Melody’ this is representing in the shape of basic & advanced Kingdom Hearts attack animations towards Heartless and Nobody enemies. The more difficult the command prompt, the more unique the attack. The main object is to reach a high enough score with level ranking increasing to move on to the next world. The leveling is actually required for the next world to be unlocked which at times can feel like a bit of a grind, but it also adds on to the practice necessary for these games. Sora and co. have a health bar and if you miss the timing on a button command this can lead to hp dipping with an empty health bar obviously meaning game over.

Rhythm combat is an unsurprising fit for Kingdom Hearts in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.

There are boss fights in certain stages which sort of changes things up a bit and they each include their own boss track. Disney characters also have their own worlds with their respective characters being playable, but these are expectedly not the focus of the game as it’s based within Kairi’s memories. Multiple characters throughout the core cast can be unlocked, though the Disney characters are mostly locked to their respective worlds. These worlds have unique sound and button commands for added difficulty and variety. King Mickey acts as a support character for healing and it also has summons. Clearing objectives per stage unlock new songs from the 140+ song catalog. There’s some co-op featured like getting the highest score, facing off against AI in three out of fives, and best 2 out of 3 that has unique features such as moves to stop your opponent from scoring. The Switch version (which is being reviewed) features a Battle Royale mode supporting up to eight players.

Believe or not ‘Memory of Melody’ features a leveling system.

THE BAD: This game is (depending on how you see it) surprisingly hard. Like crazy difficult small mistakes and poorly timed presses come frequently. This can lead to a hair pulling marathon of low level scores and low level scores means slow leveling & perhaps more importantly slower progress because you have to be a certain level for certain doors leading into new worlds. At the same time though you have to commend Square for keeping the rhythm game aesthetic authentic. These games have a history of being extremely difficult often taking a ton of practice to get the hang of (my time spent with Guitar Hero & Rocksmith still haunts me). The story is kind of sort only taking a few hours to complete depending on how much trouble you have, but it is a spinoff rhythm so don’t come in expecting a huge game because of that reason. Granted you’ll get more hours if you complete everything but if you’re only chasing the story it’s roughly about 8-10 hours. Apparently completing the game can take upwards of 60 hours depending one individual experience so there’s that to look forward. Unfortunately, outside of the initial theme and end credits no new songs specifically for the game were developed.

Play as multiple characters in the new musical based battlefield.OVERALL THOUGHTS: Kingdom Hearts: Memory of Melody in some ways is a typical Kingdom Hearts spinoff, but in a lot of ways Square Enix really went a fair bit of distance to provide a unique KH playthrough something that’s also typical of the spinoffs (which is a good thing). It’s disappointing that this is probably the only game, to my knowledge that doesn’t feature music exclusive at the time of release to it. However, it’s possible that an original score of sorts was in the works but COViID-19 got in the way before the finalization of these songs coming into production was possible. As it stands though, for what feels like a much lower budgeted title compared to past spinoffs ‘Melody of Memory’ stands on it’s own as a good side game with follow-up storytelling that connects to the future of the series. And it takes Kingdom Hearts’ into it’s rightful place in the realm of rhythm games. I’m especially impressed with the game’s performance as a series first on the Nintendo Switch. Hopefully this entices Square to at least port Kingdom Hearts 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8 over to the hybrid console in the very near future.

[spaceexp]

Tests start at CERN for large-scale prototype of new technology to detect neutrinos

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo. 13 October, 2019

Image above: A track made by a cosmic-ray muon, observed in the dual-phase ProtoDUNE detector. The ionisation released by the muon track in liquid argon and by the correlated electromagnetic activity can be seen (Image: ProtoDUNE). Scientists working at CERN have started tests of a prototype for a new neutrino detector, using novel and very promising technology called “dual phase”. If successful, this technology will be used at a much larger scale for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), hosted at Fermilab in the US. Scientists began operating the dual-phase ProtoDUNE detector at CERN at the end of August, and have observed the first particle tracks. The detector is a cube about six metres long in each direction – the size of a three-storey house – and is filled with 800 tonnes of argon. The new technology would be used in addition to so-called single-phase detectors that have been successfully operated for many years. ���The single-phase technology is a proven method that will be used to build the first module for the DUNE detector,” said DUNE co-spokesperson Ed Blucher of the University of Chicago. “The dual-phase technology provides a second method that has great potential to add to the DUNE detector’s capabilities.” Indeed, the dual-phase technology may be game-changing: it would significantly amplify the faint signals that particles create when moving through the detector. The single-phase ProtoDUNE, which began taking data at CERN in September 2018, is filled entirely with liquid argon. Sensors submerged in the liquid record the faint signals generated when a neutrino smashes into an argon atom. The dual-phase version uses liquid argon as the target material and a layer of gaseous argon above the liquid to amplify faint particle signals before they arrive at sensors located at the top of the detector, inside the argon gas. The dual-phase set-up could yield stronger signals and would enable scientists to look for lower-energy neutrino interactions. The innovative data-collection electronics, each with a surface area of nine square metres, are individually suspended a few millimetres above the liquid level. They sit in the gas layer near the top of the detector, which has special chimneys that open from the outside. This offers the advantage that the electronics can be accessed even when most of the detector is filled with liquid argon at a temperature below -184 °C. The dual-phase detector features a single active volume with no detector components in the middle of the liquid argon and a reduced number of readout elements at the top. This reduces “dead space” within the detector volume and offers the neutrinos a larger target. The single- and dual-phase prototypes at CERN are small components of the detector that the DUNE collaboration plans to build in the United States over the next decade: a DUNE detector module will house the equivalent of twenty ProtoDUNEs and operate at up to 600 000 volts. DUNE plans to build four full-size detector modules based on argon technology. These will be located around 1.5 km underground, at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. Scientists will use them to understand whether neutrinos could be the reason that matter dominates over antimatter in our universe. The outcomes of the test at CERN will help with deciding how many modules will feature the single-phase technology and how many will use the dual-phase technology. Note: CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature. The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 Member States. Related links: ProtoDUNE, which began taking data at CERN in September 2018: https://home.cern/news/press-release/experiments/first-particle-tracks-seen-prototype-international-neutrino Dual-phase version: https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/a-dual-phase-dune For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: https://home.cern/ Image, Text, Credit: European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

[tacticsroom]

Oliver: Admirer of Beauty (Unit Review)

Available at 3-4★ (Grand Hero Battle Reward)

Lvl 40 Stats (Flaw/Neutral/Asset)

Note: As a Grand Hero Battle reward, Oliver does not have access to boons/assets and banes/flaws.

HP: 39/42/45 

Atk: 29/32/35

Spd: 17/20/23

Def: 20/23/26 

Res: 31/34/37 

Neutral BST: 151

Max Dragonflowers: 10

Skills

Weapon: Shine+ (300 SP)

Mt: 13. Rng: 2. 

Blue Tome. Can be inherited. Can be refined.

Assist: None

Special: Blazing Light (200 SP)

Before initiating combat, foes in the area near target take damage equal to 1.5 x (unit’s Atk minus foe’s Def or Res).

Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.

A: Mirror Strike 2 (240 SP)

If unit initiates fight, grants Atk/Res +4 during combat. 

Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.

B: None

C: Atk Ploy 3 (240 SP)

At start of turn, foes in cardinal direction of unit with 1 Res less than unit suffer Atk-5 for the duration of their next action.

Can be inherited. 

Analysis

Oliver returns along with several other of last year’s GHB units to remind all of us of not only his beauty but of flawless beauty itself. Unfortunately for Oliver in terms of competing against other blue tome units he finds himself in a difficult position. His stat line lines him up to be an enemy phase magic tank but his base kit conflicts this role slightly. Suffice to say Oliver certainly has his strengths.

Oliver’s most noteworthy stats here are his Atk and Res, both sitting at decent 32 and 34 respectively. His base kit further compliments both stats as he carries Mirror Strike as his A skill of choice and Atk Ploy as his C. His tome, unlike most GHB weapons released nowadays, can be refined for Res to expand the number of units he can ploy reliably. However this is where Oliver begins to fall off when compared against his competition. Having lackluster speed and defense, carrying a player phase A skill does more harm than good. It’s unlikely that he’ll be able to survive a foe’s counterattack unless they happen to be a red mage. While his tome may be kept for players who plan on highly investing in Oliver it would be more worthwhile to switch his tome for another. He does, however, have a considerable amount of bulk for a blue tome and can easily be kitted out to be a ranged tank similar to the likes of M!Robin. Oliver can prove his worth - he just requires more investment than most GHB units.

On his first merge, Oliver will gain +2 HP/Atk and +1 Res.

Reasons to Invest in Oliver

You like Oliver and intend to use him in a core team, whether it be for Arena, Aether Raids, or an Infantry

You’re interested in building Oliver due to his potential as a magic ranged tank

You have obtained all or most previous copies made available and do not mind the grail cost

Reasons NOT to Invest in Oliver

You don’t intend on using him as a core on any team or in any PVE game modes such as Rival Domains or Grand Conquest

You don’t play Aether Raids and have no interest in obtaining grails

You consider Oliver’s playstyle and base kit uninteresting and would rather fodder his skills off to other heroes you use

You already have an invested blue tome unit that you already use on your core Infantry, Arena & or Aether Raids team

Similar Units

Note: As a Grand Hero Battle Reward Oliver does not have access to boons/assets or banes/flaws and therefore is not directly comparable to any summonable units. 

Saias: Bishop of Flame (36/33/30/18/34)

Oliver: Admirer of Beauty (+6/-1/-10/+5/+0)

Note: Saias has access to uninheritable skills and is thus not directly comparable. 

Robin: High Deliverer (40/29/29/29/22)

Oliver: Admirer of Beauty (+2/+2/-9/-6/+12)

Note: M!Robin has access to uninheritable skills and is thus not directly comparable.

Builds

Budget/Low Investment:

Oliver can be easily made into a unit counter or a magic tank with little investment.

The build on the left keeps the majority of his base kit making him out to be a red mage counter. He may also swap out R Tomebreaker for Swordbreaker if a sword counter is more desired. Here we simply give him a Res refine to improve his odds of activating Atk Ploy on his foes. Atk/Res Bond and Mirror Strike are kept so that when he initiates against a foe while next to an ally he receives +9 Atk/Res while in combat. Iceberg is taken for his high Res but can be swapped to a lower cooldown special like Moonbow if desired.

The build on the right simply kits him out to be a magic counter taking Fury as his A skill to boost his raw stats by +3. Renewal is taken to help regenerate his HP after every 2 turns and to help him climb back into Quick Riposte range. We take an Atk refine to boost his damage output and Iceberg is used to make use of Oliver’s high Res. It’s important to note with the following setup it’s crucial that Oliver be kept as healthy as possible for if he takes too much damage it may take too long for him to get back into Quick Riposte’s range.

Oliver seal options include but aren’t limited to: Atk+3, Res+3, Atk/Res 2, Distant Def 3, Bond skills, Stance skills, and Ploy skills.

Mixed Phases:

Oliver has unique options at his disposal being a blue tome unit. He’s not limited to a strict role as a magic tank.

The set on the left showcases the basic raven tome setup. Oliver has decent mixed defenses and as such can not only perform as a counter against red tom units but also as a counter for common colorless threats such as bows and daggers. The crux of the following build is Triangle Adept. Triangle Adept, when combined with a raven tome, will subject colorless units to the weapon triangle and place them at a disadvantage while in combat. Quick Riposte is taken to ensure follow-ups against all non-bow units but can be swapped out for Distant Def 3 if desired.

The set on the right stirs in the opposite direction kitting him out as a pseudo player phase unit utilizing the infamous Desperation/Brash Assault combination. Once Oliver fall around or below 50% of his HP he will be able to double any units that can counterattack against him even if originally he wouldn’t be able to double them. Mirror Strike is kept mainly for the sake of budget but can be swapped out for Death Blow if more damage is desired. We use a Blarblade here to improve his overall damage output and Even Atk Wave to both bolster his Attack and to make better use of his blade tome. Because Oliver will be (ideally) subjected to multiple buffs to his stats with a blade setup we can afford to take Glimmer as our special.

High Investment:

Oliver is a man of true beauty. Beauty must stand in the face of adversity (or in this case, powercreep). The following setups are best intended for players who plan on heavily investing in a beautiful man.

The set on the left shows a mixed defense close counter build. Oliver can easily mix his defenses so that he can take on more than just magic opponents. To do this, we take both a Def refined tome and Steady Stance. His tome, Blarowl, is taken not only for its refine but for its additional effect granting a +2 bonus for each adjacent ally next to Oliver for a max bonus of +6. Atk Smoke is used to help Oliver survive multiple encounters ploying enemies for -7 Atk if they're within 2 spaces of the attacking foe. Iceberg is taken due to Oliver's high Res and for its synergy with Quick Riposte.

The build on the right sets Oliver up to be a direct counter to not only magic units but to firesweep users and, more importantly, Wrazzle Dazzle staff units. Distant Def 4 will not only provide Oliver with +8 Def/Res when a foe initiates combat against him but will also nullify buffs on said foe completely negating any damage they would have originally done. Blarserpant+ has Distant Def 3 built into it, resulting in Oliver having +14 Def/Res if any ranged foe initiates him in combat. Null C Disrupt will allow Oliver to counterattack against Wrazzle Dazzle staves and Firesweep bow users while Quick Riposte will allow him to always make a followup attack. Even Def Wave is taken to further improve his physical bulk.

[bristolpusher-blog]

Rainbow Six: Siege and why I love it.

History of Siege:

Rainbow Six: Siege is a tactical FPS game developed and published by Ubisoft (more specifically Ubisoft Montreal) during December 1st. The game is currently approaching the end of its third year and has reached around 35,000,000 (35 million) players, but it didn't start this way.

Siege's official gameplay trailer was shown at E3 is vastly different to the game upon release. The game trailer shows tactical and long rounds requiring large amounts of communication with little room for error, stunning graphics and interactive animation between the hostage and other players. No operators were shown indicating that originaly everyone would be the games current operator "Recruit" but with their own special loadout and no abilities with customisation likely being very limited.

The trailer ends with a standoff between a defender and an attacker firing shots with no answer to who won the round (probably to show that both sides are infact balanced and have equal chance of winning). You could even take a helicopter landing onto the roof which is badass (And probably would've saved us from the spawn peak craze, but more on that later) but alas the game changed vastly at some point during production.

(I can't really talk about the beta as not only do I think it's not really important to understanding the history of siege as it played almost identically to day one release but I also have never played the beta version of Siege, However I will link a video to a closed Alpha gameplay video)

1st of December 2015: Rainbow Six: Siege is released to the world with 20 operators (and everyone's favourite: Recruit of course) these included: SAS: Thatcher, Sledge, Smoke, Mute. FBI: Ash, Thermite, Castle, Pulse. GIGN: Montange, Twitch, Rook, Doc Spetsnaz: Fuze, Glaz, Tachanka, Kapkan GSG9: IQ, Blitz, Jager, Bandit

Giving two from each to the attacks and defenders. (Attackers left, Defenders right) Your starting team depended on your colour. Orange was Defence and Blue was attack with the teams rotating roles each round while maintaining their colour.

But the operators were locked behind walls of money called Renown. Luckily however this didn't effect the game too hard as within literally one match you had your first operator in that division. But the prices rose if you wanted to buy an operator in the same grouping. So if I bought SAS Thatcher all SAS ops would be more expensive (Unless using R6 credits the in game paid currency). My first operator was GIGN Montange a shield operator and my last was GIGN Rook who ironically became my most played defender so I just wish I'd bought him earlier. Each operator has a unique ability which changes the playstyle with limited resources that cannot be reloaded even in the terrorist hunt game mode which gives you ammo boxes.

Here's a link to a video containing all operator guns, and abilities:

A season pass system was also announced by Ubisoft the first being Operator Black ice giving us two Canadian operators: Frost and Buck and this is what I think makes Siege so unique from other tactical FPS. These operations unlocked cosmetic items, new weapon skins (Most noted is the black ice renowned for being the best skin in the game) here's a list by Ubisoft of all rewards for the pass.

The JTF-2 operators, Frost and Buck, the Navy SEALs operators, Valkyrie and Blackbeard, the BOPE operators, Caveira and Capitão, and the SAT operators, Echo and Hibana. 600 R6 credits, R6 icon charm, premium pass until December 1st 2016. However these operators were available to everybody if they purchased them with free renown they got from playing matches (Around 150 if you lose and around 300 if you win) these operators cost a large amount but its not impossible as I did it myself to unlock Capitao.

In July 2017 Alpha packs were introduced. These unlocked through a sort of roulette wheel at the end of a winning game. The pack (if landed on a white bar you built up by playing games) contained cosmetic headgear and weapon skins until this season where Jager received a legendary uniform in Legendary Alpha packs. These packs are blind luck and you never know what they contain until you open them. If you have the season pass the pack percentage gets a 0.30% boost and when losing it goes up by 1.5% and when winning 3%. (Of course not including the additional bonus for season passes) these can be bought for varying amounts if Renown

These season passes continue until this day with free content such as maps, cosmetics and operators being released. (8 a year) As of writing this Grim Skies (Year 3 Season 3) is ongoing and the game is definitely had a few bumps this season with the introduction of Clash who's nerf patch hasn't been released at the time of writing.

And now the siege history lesson ends and my opinion begins. I LOVE Siege. I play it basically every day and never seem to tire of this. But I don't think that's just because of me being some addicted fan boy. I think that the reason Siege has become so popular and developed such a massive community is because the huge comeback it had. It was originally a huge failure with players leaving in mass. Thousands of videos on youtube pointed out its massive flaws until instead of abandoning it... Ubi started work. Bug fixes, anti cheat, graphics improvement. You name it, if the community asked Ubi delivered and they still do to this day. Even refusing to change Tachanka despite his huge meme status as being terrible simply because fans love him that way even releasing a cosmetic bundle called "Lord Tachanka" a huge fucking meme amoungst the community that the devs love too which just shows how tight knit we are as a game. While they did take a while to do it during the big Hack period they fixed that for fans and announced they would do so even before the big Youtubers jumped in on it.

Ubi revived Siege. And I can never really express just how thankful I am for that in words. I love this game and I can't wait for the next season or the next game.

Gameplay:

Now it's time to talk about the gameplay Holy shit is this fun. When something goes well and your team just clicks you forget you're playing a game. You're a squad of 5 elite special forces soldiers who's training has lead to an unstoppable wall of fire as your tear through your enemy and it only gets better when the enemy does so too. The rush you feel when a 1v1 comes after a long gun fight is tense and nerve-wracking as you feel your whole team watching you or calling info on cams or drones (More on that later) winning is satisfying and losing is crushing but you still don't want to give up. Because you know that with the right team and the right strats you can wipe the floor with even the best of players.

Games tend to last around 15 minutes in casual with three rounds won being the win and up to 30+ in Ranked. Each round has a drone phase where little black RC drones race around the map looking for the objective while defenders quickly reinforce the room with defences such as metal wall reinforcments, barbed wire, deployable shields, nitro cells (C4 explosive) and your defenders personal gadget. You then have 4 minutes to either complete the objective as Attackers or wipe the enemy team and vice versa as defenders.

There are currently 18 maps in Siege such as, House, Oregan and Presidential Plane with another map planned next season. My personal favourite is Clubhouse.

On your gun you can add various attachments such as scopes, grips and compensators. But it's hard for me to talk about that since it's mainly personal preference I almost always use Reflex but most like the Acog scope. Here's a list of what attachments you should put on guns according to Varsity Gaming who you should check out for tips and info on actual mechanics such as damage drop off on guns.

This brings us nicely to spawn peaking. Since defenders spawn 45 seconds prior to Attackers and there's fixed spawns Defenders began opening windows to shoot people as they exited a spawn area most prominently Jager and Bandit. This resulted in their Acog scopes being removed and eventually all Acog scopes from all 2 speed and 3 speed defenders giving a large advantage on the Attackers side as in long range encounters the 2.5x zoom of an ACOG will help massively. Here's another link to a video which marks all things removed or nerfed to the current date. It's still a sensitive topic today as spawn peaking still exists but you're much more likely to miss someone or get killed yourself when you do it.

10 years of content has been announced but people do still doubt it but personally I think it can be done. Considering we're about to enter year 4 and the game is only growing in popularity I see no reason why it's going to stop any time soon. Especially now its practically one of the biggest Esports perhaps only being outdone by League and Dota with Overwatch declining it its recent years.

Not to mention the huge profit they overturn in cosmetics Ubi made pro league and elite skins, the later of which unlocks special MVP animations when equipped and winning as the largest point scorer.

How to Play the game

Now let's discus the gamemodes. You have Casual and Ranked with Custom matches and Terrorist hunt being less of a central focus and an offline Situations mode for beginners to practice.

Casual matches assign random spawns, random defence points and has a cap limit of 5 rounds with a winner being declared after someone reaches 3 otherwise resulting in a draw which effects nothing and gives bad rewards considering you just both basically won.

Ranked gives you a choice of spawns, defence points and caps at 9 rounds with a winner either being declared at 4-2> or having to go to a 5 after it reaches 4-3. After winning a defence location defenders who won may no longer use that defence point until it reaches the overtime tie breaker rounds of 4-3 onwards where everything resets basically. Drone and round times are the same however for both casual and Ranked if an objective is being complete such as Hostage being extracted, Defuser is being/ is planted or Securing objective/contesting then like casual the timer will never end until someone either leaves the room or dies. If a user leaves a ranked match their space is never filled nd they receive a ranked match ban for 15 minutes which increases each time and leave penalty

All game modes feature a DBNO (Down but not out stage) where you will be knocked to the floor and a large + icon surrounded by a white circle slowly being ticked away by a red line creeping across will appear. Your vision will be impaired and movement reduced to a crawl. You will produce a blood trail leading the enemy to you if you crawl away. You can press and hold to stop movement but hold the blood in giving you more time to wait for a teamate to come help you up. Any damage you take will probably kill you and all revives (except Docs stim pistol and Finkas adredinal surge) will get you back up on 50 health and must be done when right next you the only exception to these rules is Zofia and Doc who can get themselves up if Doc has a stim left and Zofia needs no help at all and after a brief 5 second animation can get up on 1 health and continue to fight.

Gamemodes in Ranked and Casual are:

Hostage: Hostage must be extracted from defence point and taken outside to a red flare where you will extract him/her and win you can as with teammates kill the hostage instead of the minus 100 points and ban (and an additional -100) for killing two teammates like you may expect you're hit with an instant -500 points and an almost certain ban if you're not careful. And since Renown is given based off of points this will likely screw you out of any renown if you lose the match and don't receive the +2000 points for winning.

In Secure area you must enter the room with the container automatically beginning to secure it simply by being in the room however. A loud siren goes off wherever an enemy enters with a large "Contested objective" appearing above the icon that goes through walls for both teams if a defender is inside and a "Securing..." if not.

On Bomb there are two sites near eachother [A] and [B] with Attackers having to enter the room and plant a single defuser given to one member at the start of the round taking 7ish seconds to plant and 40ish seconds to defuse the bomb entirely however the bomb defuser can be destroyed by the defence team by approaching it and holding the button to defuse with the same 7ish seconds needed to defuse however during this time the defuser still continues to tick down and can pass the threshold of defusing the bomb while a defender defuses resulting in an attacking victory.

All of these gamemodes are 5vs5

Terrorist Hunt:

Terrorist Hunt features a range of difficulties: Normal, Hard and Fucking impossible (Realistic). These missions can either be done alone or with a team. Depending on difficulty team friendly damage is reduced so I'd recommend Team play if you want a lot of renown for not very much work at all.

Situations:

These missions have fixed objectives and must be done alone in single player. After completing all situations that teach you how to play you may take part in Article 15. A difficult mission in a realistic difficulty where you and 4 others must defuse 2 bombs inside the map Bartlett University with heavily obscured vision in yellow clouds filling the map obscuring enemies and the bodies that liter the ground.

Custom Games:

These allow modifiers for a 5vs5 with friends or less even allowing you to explore the map alone. You can change health, timers such as increasing defuse time, drone time, match time and the amount of rounds. You can even turn on pro league settings to have a tournament with your friends.

Shop:

Siege has an in game shop where you can purchase the previously mentioned elite skins and various other items such as weapon skins, Pro league sets and weapon skins, charms and even the glorious Lord Tachanka sets.

Final thoughts and review:

Siege is in my opinion one of the greatest FPS games of all time. It has incredible fans, Gameplay is smooth and fun and most importantly tense. If I could play just one game with all of you then you'd know how big a difference one person can make each match, how much communication changes the game and how often friends tk each other for cheesy spiderman jokes.

I highly recommend you purchase it. Or play a free weekend. With a starter edition being so cheap right now especially when a sale comes on the only real reason to avoid the game would be the toxic team killers we have. But since the new tk ban changes I've been teamkilled only 12 times. 2 by friends, 7 accident and three being toxic players. That's not however saying it doesn't happen. But trust me. Your teammates will straight up slam the fucker who does it. I don't think I've ever been killed in a ranked match except by Mira mains who want their walls or accidents especially at the higher ranks. I hope this helped you either get a look into my perspective on Siege. Or perhaps convinced you to give it a chance or reinstall. Trust me. Give it a chance like I did and you'll never regret it.

Informative Siege Videos:

Siege Youtubers:

And of course the best Siege Youtuber of all time:

(This is my channel. Subscribe if you want I only upload for fun which I'm pretty happy with)

[critrateup]

Run It Back: Kingdom Hearts 1.5 -- The Introduction and Destiny Islands

The title screen of Kingdom Hearts remains to be my favorite intros in all of games. Dearly Beloved is a theme which by now has been arranged, reprised, and remixed into about a dozen official versions. It’s a theme so iconic that rather than start fresh with an entirely new track for each new series entry, it’s been repurposed as an overture of sorts -- every reimagining of the track can tell you something about tone, beats, and themes present in the game ahead. In this instance, the theme has a somewhat melancholy bass line married to a flittering melody. The rhythm goes in an unhurried circle arriving back unto itself, accompanied by the sounds of waves gently crashing onto the shore. Sora stands in a beautiful watercolor illustration, alone and looking out at the sea. Like most of the other parts of the game that I remember fondly, the elements come together in a way that just feels right. Sora is alone, and though his expression is relaxed you get the feeling that he isn’t quite happy either. There’s a touch of mourning to the scene, which stands as a somewhat abrupt contrast to the expectations one would bring to a licensed Disney game in the early 2000’s -- something was different this time, and it was exciting!

The menu options are unfussy. You can start a new game or load a save (and in the case of the ReMIX versions, back out to the game select screen), and upon starting a new file you’re greeted with an intro cinematic. The cinematic starts with a beautifully rendered cloudscape that flashes the title in an unstylized, spartan, and serif’d font, and fades into a scene with Sora voiced by Haley Joel Osmant narrating his thoughts. It feels a little surreal, with him floating in space eyes half closed, wondering aloud to himself if he can trust his grasp of reality anymore. It sets the tone for the series, and places its production values front and center with a flashy cinematic delivering visuals well beyond what the hardware could deliver and professional Hollywood voice acting on par with what we’d expect from a Disney production yet surpassing performances we’d heard from up to that point. It also captures a certain angst that just resonated really well with 14 year old me. My stresses were piled high though I wouldn’t know to call them that at the time. I was just beginning to process some intense personal trauma that had occured very recently; national tragedy had struck the year before, with 9/11 and the G.W Bush Administration altering the course of American politics; and of course I was just entering high school, and all the baggage that brings along. Something about the way Sora saw himself falling from the sky, eyes closed and unable or unwilling to take control of his descent, resonated close and hard with me.

This is also the first time we hear the iconic Simple and Clean track, here as the -PlanitB Mix- with clubby vibe that marks the dramatic sweeps of the chorus have just a little more flair. The soundtrack to Kingdom Hearts was so good that it led to me hunting down a copy of the soundtrack at Tower Records. The craziest thing to me was that it had a domestic release (!) complete with the english (!!) versions of the Utada tracks and an unabridged, two-disc version of the soundtrack. Yoko Shimomura has since become a favorite composer of mine, to the point where I’d instantly recognized her work when I saw the first Final Fantasy XV trailer.

As a somewhat technical aside, The PS4 remaster runs at 60 frames per second, while the original ran at about 30. While the gameplay with look and act much smoother as a result, it is worth noting that the animation in the cutscenes has been keyed to 30fps resulting in a visual discontinuity when moving to and from cutscenes to live gameplay. It’s understandable, but it also shows the beginnings of what will be a recurring question with the remastered version of the game running on modern hardware: should the game be presented as the original was in 2002, and what should be modernized to make the game more akin to something of a remaster (or ReMIX in KH parlance) in 2013 then again in 2017. Although I recognize the sheer amount of work hours it would have taken to go back and essentially reanimate every cutscene in the game would border on absurd, it does give the impression that there was some work the developers and management at Square Enix were seemingly willing and unwilling to do in a re-presentation of the game -- this is not a no-holds-barred recreation of the original, nor is it quick and dirty supplanting of the original. Rather, it’s something that lands in the world between, and I’ll be noting such seems as they occur to me.

The opening with the stained glass figures is still striking as ever, and the constant moody, cryptic narration sets the mysterious vibe well. There’s a short sequence of actual gameplay that gives a brief tutorial of basic movement and attacking controls, then asks you with somewhat cryptic messages to essentially choose a build for your playthrough. I chose defense as my boosted stat in my original playthrough because of the way it’s worded. “The power of the guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all.” Of course these were values that I was All About™ but to be frank in later years when I discovered speedrunners and disgustingly destructive magic builds I became all about them, and would probably have never chosen Defense as a buffed stat in any of my playthroughs to begin with. It’s telling how effective the copy is when I still feel a pang of shame in sacrificing the shield as my default stat nerf.

The opening moments of gameplay on the Destiny Islands are totally unremarkable, and serve to highlight a coming weakness in the game -- namely, the clunky as hell platforming, with something of an identity crisis to come. It attempts to make stages interesting and fun by including varied elements of traversal and platforming, but the game’s unforgiving movement and jumping mechanics make it a difficult sell. With small ledges, an obtuse camera, finicky movement and facing requirements, a seeming lack of jump buffering and ledge forgiveness (more on that here https://www.patreon.com/posts/gamemaker-tips-14531948), getting precise movement out of Sora takes a whole lot of patience. Some of this will later be alleviated with Metroidvania-esque upgrades like a glide and a high jump, but running through the game’s platforming challenges with a vanilla Sora is tedious. Punishment for missing jumps can be harsh, reminiscent of Ratchet and Clank’s Planet Novalis Waterworks where a single misstep would send you to the back of the line to redo an entire sequence.

There’s something kind of cool and again telling in the way the tides are rendered on the beach. They’re GIF-y, cycling between a few frames of canned sea foam animation. Out of place as they may look running natively on a Playstation 4 in 2018, the way the gentle ebb and flow are rendered serve as a quaint reminder of the hardware that served the original entry -- it’s something of a momento mori for the videogame age.

The cave/secluded room on Destiny Islands has a bunch of really cool chalk drawings that I recommend you check out. Some of them seem to be of elements to come in the series, like the royal castle, starry adventures, and what even appears to be a Donald and Goofy. Weather intentional markers of the series’ now apparent time traveling and mysticism shenanigans or just fun little easter eggs for attentive players using the first person view function, it’s still a nice touch.

After some tedious gathering missions meant to familiarize you with the controls, Sora’s weighty movement, and some minor characters, the meat of the story begins to reveal itself. The introduction of the trio of Kairi, Sora, and Riku is mostly to the point -- Sora is excitable, smiley, and kind of a bag of rocks; Riku is intent on accompishing his goal of leaving the islands, seemingly in spite of the costs; and Kairi is kind if somewhat mischievous. There’s something of a love triangle painted between the three which serves to further drive their division in the coming cataclysm.

This is (to my knowledge) the only time the parents of Sora, Kairi, and Riku are even briefly acknowledged in the series. There’s a quick and disembodied line about dinner being ready at Sora’s house, and Kairi only briefly mentions family as the island is being torn apart from within. It’s kind of weird and maybe telling that Nomura and company weren’t sure how the game was going to do and what kind of future it may or may not have had coming. It’s a weird appendage to the series that seems impossible not to acknowledge.

And with that, the trio are sucked into the abyss, we get a glimpse of King Mickey’s castle, Riku in what we’ll later discover is Hollow Bastion, and Donald and Goofy are introduced. The story is told from and omniscient, cross-cutting point of view and I think it works for the most part. There are a lot of threads to keep track of, with characters we’re given lots of reasons to care about. In a game where the player character is one of a group of protagonists, each thematically and literally lost and in search of something, it creates a bigger payoff in dramatic tension to see them criss cross and near miss in pursuit of one another.

Next time, we’ll visit Traverse Town and discuss it’s soothing, soft-porn sax track at the crossroads of every world.

[fantabulosogamedev]

Status Update: The Plan

Hey guys!  I’ve been writing this post for around a week now, originally as a video script, and it’s ballooned way out of control, so I’ve decided to give y’all the summary of it as best I can here in text.  Come by the Discord if you have any questions!

So here we are, t-minus 26 days before the demo releases, with no majorly new information since the last Progress Update.  What’s the situation?  Am I still on schedule?  The answer is...yes!!  However...

Part One: The Game Itself

Some major changes have come about in terms of my plan for the game as a whole.  Essentially, my original plan (16ish levels total) was just infeasible at this point, and would result in a development time bordering on at least 3 more years at max development speed -- while some people might be cool with waiting that long, I’m not!  I gotta eat, and the amount of money I’d need to fund 3 years of development would be really high to ask for a fresh dev like me.

So, here’s the new plan: The Fantabulous Game will now consist of 6 primary levels, along with a tutorial zone (Cragwell Woods) and a hub accessed after The Fightyplace.  Based on my estimates, this should reduce the development time to approximately 1-1.5 years if all goes as planned, thereby reducing kickstarter costs and wait times.  The levels will consist of a reimagining of the Shamrock path of LFG, featuring the Shamrock City, the prison Ballcatraz, the Shamrock Palace, and more!

To compensate for this drastic reduction in content, some positive changes will be made as well: the game will now cost $15 instead of $20, a Boycap miniboss will be present in each level, brief linear connecting zones between levels will exist to add cohesion and content to the world, and most interestingly the Fantabula sublevels will be expanded!

Previously, the sublevels were going to just be brief platforming challenges, with a gold sausage for a normal clear and a bludsausage for a speedclear.  However, the sublevels are now going to be expanded into proper linear levels, featuring collectibles of several kinds scattered throughout...as well as their own full-blown bossfight!  Why am I bringing this up now?

With only 6 proper levels in the game, I no longer feel comfortable offering the Fightyplace for free in the demo, as it now takes up a much larger amount of the game’s content proportionally.  So instead, I’ll be releasing The Fightyplace’s Fantabula Sublevel, with some tweaks and modifications to give the player as full of an experience as I can!  Unfortunately I can’t say for sure how long the demo will be, as much of it will come down to player skill level -- time permitting, however, I’d like to add a NG+ to it, where players can push themselves against much more powerful enemies.

Finally, in regards to the 8 cut levels: if The Fantabulous Game is successful, I plan on working them into two separate expansion packs to be released after TFG is completed, for around $10 each.  The first of these expansion packs would focus on the antics of a non-Shamrock race from Le Fantabulous Game, and (assuming expac1 was successful) the second would turn its sights to exploring exactly how the world of LFG turned into the one found in TFG.

Part Two: The Crowdfunding

So with that out of the way, I’d also like to talk about my plan for the game’s crowdfunding campaign!  I’ve decided to use a blend of the top options from the poll I posted several months ago: on, or shortly after, the release of the demo, I’ll be launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the game, with a goal of $40k.  I’ll be putting the currently planned rewards and stretch goals at the bottom of this post, and would love to hear you guys’ feedback on what should be added/removed/adjusted.

However, those looking for Early Access, I hear you as well -- it was the first option on the poll, after all!  Here’s the plan when it comes to EA: the Kickstarter, like many others, will have a backer tier for beta access throughout the game’s development.  This backer tier will function the same as Early Access would, but would not be discounted.  However!

If the game is successful, and I decide to create the two expansion packs I mentioned above, both of the DLCs will be sold on steam via early access with a sizeable discount pre-release.  Considering the expansion packs would make up approximately 50% of the original content of the game, I think this is a great compromise between the crowdfunding options!  This will also apply to any future expansion packs I make beyond those two, such as the hypothetical Boycap xpac.

Part Three: The Specifics

As I mentioned above, I have a rough draft of my plans for the Kickstarter, and would love to have feedback on them.  Here they are:

Reward Tiers:

Get the game (EARLY EGG) - $10, 750 available

Get the game - $15

Deluxe Edition: Get the game, digital manual, & soundtrack (EARLY EGG) - $15, 750 available

Deluxe Edition: Get the game, digital manual, & soundtrack - $20

Beta access: Pay more to get access to the game throughout development, in the form of episodically released levels! (good for those who wished for Early Access!) - $35

Deluxe Beta Access - Beta Access with the Deluxe additions! - $40

Design a Spherefolk NPC: design a friendly Spherefriend or Shamrock to show up in various levels throughout the game!  Design includes clothing, skin patterns, and dialogue (all subject to developer approval).  NPCs would randomly appear chosen from a pool of all backer NPCs. Also, appear in the credits as a “Backerfriend” and receive the Deluxe Beta edition of the game! $80

Design a Spheredog Collectible: Design a Spheredog to show up as a collectible in one of the levels of the game!  Design can be anything subject to developer approval, but must maintain the basic structure of a Spheredog. Also, appear in the credits as a “Supreme Backerfriend” and receive the Deluxe Beta edition of the game!  - $150, 50 Available

Design an NPC: Design a unique NPC that Capboy will encounter several times throughout his adventure!  Design is up to you nearly entirely, but should remain reasonable within the boundaries of TFG’s universe and remains subject to developer approval. Also, appear in the credits as a “Legendariful Backerfriend” and "Character Designer,” and receive the Deluxe Beta edition of the game! - $300

Design one of Boycap’s mechs: Design a mechanical boss based on anything!  You get to decide how it fights and harasses Capboy throughout the level, but specifics and general design are subject to developer approval. Also, appear in the credits as an “Fantabulous Backerfriend” and “Boss Designer,” and receive the Deluxe Beta edition of the game!  - $450, 2 available

Design a Fantabula Boss: Design a boss encountered within The Fantabula!  The boss must somewhat match the level theme and is subject to developer approval.   Also, appear in the credits as a “Fantabulous Backerfriend” and “Boss Designer,” and receive the Deluxe Beta edition of the game! - $600, 2 available

Ultimate Designer’s Pack: Every reward listed above, including every single “Design an X” reward!  Also, get to be brought onto the developer team as a creative contributor, joining private discussion about plans for bosses, enemies, levels and more!  Appear in the credits as a “Creative Contributor” and every corresponding Backerfriend section, and receive the Deluxe Beta edition of the game! - $900, 1 available

Stretch/Funding Goals:

40k - Funding Goal

45k - Mutators -- upon finishing the game, the player can use achievement-unlocked mutators to affect future runs of the game!  Mutator ideas include having every weapon unlocked right away, randomly shuffled stats on weapons, randomly shuffled enemies, and more!  Mutators would be included with the game upon release.

50k - Boss Rush -- The player would be able to rematch any bosses they’ve beaten, including a time trial mode where they’re given a specific build that they must fight each boss with.  Good scores would unlock further achievements, unlocking costumes and mutators.  Boss Rush would be included with the game upon release.

60k - Second Quest -- The Second Quest would essentially be a hardmode, beyond the simple changes offered by NG+.  Unlocked after beating the game, the Second Quest would feature a brand new story set in modified versions of the main game levels, with brand new harder versions of every boss -- which would be included in the Boss Rush!  The Second Quest would be released as a free update after the game’s release.

70k - Local Competitive Multiplayer --Local up-to-4 player PvP multiplayer gamemodes.  Gamemodes would include 1v1 and 2v2 deathmatch, king of the hill, and a flag-football styled gamemode.  Platforming races, “gungame” styled fights, and more would all be further options.  The Multiplayer would be released as a free update after the game’s release.

If you’re still with me after reading that massive post, thank you!!  I greatly appreciate your devotion to the game if you read all of that, and if you just skipped down here I don’t blame ya at all.  Unfortunately though, I can’t really tl;dr this, so you’ve gotta bear with it.

With less than 4 weeks to the demo, it’s exciting to finally see these two and a half years of work start to come to fruition!  Thank you to everyone who’s been supporting the game throughout its development -- here’s to a successful campaign, thanks to you guys’ help!  If you have feedback and/or questions about this plan, swing by the discord to talk about it there, but if not...I’ll catch you guys on the 26th!

-Fantabuloso

[aion-rsa]

How GTA Online Taught Us to Be Careful What We Wish For

https://ift.tt/3p4sWGO

As we all continue to wait for any official information about GTA 6, news has broken that GTA 5 has surpassed the 140 million units sold mark. Perhaps more impressively, reports reveal that 2020 was the most successful sales year in GTA 5 history outside of the game’s release in 2013. While that success can be attributed to a variety of factors, there’s little doubt that the game’s stunning longevity is largely due to the popularity of GTA Online.

I don’t remember exactly when I first dreamed of an online Grand Theft Auto game, but I’m certain it wasn’t too long after I played GTA 3 in 2001. Around that time, my friends and I started asking the simple question, “What if we could play that with each other?”

That question grew more complicated as the GTA games did the same. Vice City‘s real estate mechanic inspired dreams of online wars for the control of the city, while San Andreas’ greatly expanded the scope of GTA’s sandbox from a size and activity standpoint. GTA 4 actually featured numerous online modes, but its collection of rigid multiplayer matches and simplistic free roam option often fell short of offering the full “GTA but with friends” experience that fans had wished for.

Then, it finally happened. In 2013, Rockstar confirmed that GTA 5 would feature exactly the kind of multiplayer mode that fans had dreamt of for years. Actually, with its expansive online map, progression system, various modes of play, and community options, GTA Online’s reveal suggested that it would be something greater than anyone could have ever wished for. Little did we know that the finger on a monkey’s paw curled somewhere in the world shortly after this trailer’s release:

GTA Online’s problems were evident from the very first time many of us tried to play the game. Actually, it’s very much worth emphasizing the word “tried.” GTA Online’s servers were such a mess at launch that you’ have roughly as much luck now trying to buy a PS5 against an army of bots as you would have had logging in to GTA Online when it launched in 2013. Shortly after all that happened, Rockstar issued the standard apologies, worked some server magic, and fixed a variety of bugs. It took a few weeks, but we finally got to a point when you could log on to GTA Online at will and experience a mostly stable version of the game. 

That’s when things got really interesting. As it turned out, sharing your GTA experience with others meant that you’d be playing with people who saw you as just another NPC in their sandbox. It wasn’t long before you started to hear reports of players mercilessly attacking others in the game’s open-world. It was generally amusing the first few times, but for some, these trolls essentially started to dictate the way that you had to play the game just to stay alive in the world. What’s worse is that many of them had already started relying on hacks other cheats that devastated an already uneven playing field. 

Players could theoretically turn to GTA Online’s various missions, races, and other activities to escape the open-world mayhem, but those offered little relief. Many of GTA Online’s initial activities were essentially variant’s of the campaign’s most basic missions but without any narrative stakes to elevate them. Their simplicity was made that much more apparent by the game’s underdeveloped initial progression system which left players little to do with the money they were earning and forced everyone to wonder what, exactly, “RP” was.

Don’t take my word on GTA Online’s bad old days. In a 2017 interview with IGN, Rockstar’s director of design, Imran Sarwar, admitted that GTA Online’s “launch and first eight or nine months” were not successful. To make matters worse, he says that things reached a point where the developers themselves were “not excited enough by the updates we were making.” The game was rapidly losing players and Rockstar was still devoting considerable resources to hunting bugs and keeping the servers alive. 

That’s where I left GTA Online in 2014. I knew it was possible to have fun in the game, but I was convinced that the mode would end up being a Sea of Thieves style experience that would essentially require you to play with the right group of friends in the right state of mind if you were going to get anything substantial out of it. It felt like Rockstar had ultimately created an elaborate way to kill some time while we waited for GTA 6.

Of course, that’s not what happened. GTA Online went on to earn almost $1.5 billion just four years after its release. It’s estimated that GTA Online earned nearly $600 million in revenue in 2019 alone. Suddenly, talks of GTA 6 were limited to wild online conspiracies and an endless parade of rumors of that marched on as it became increasingly clear that GTA Online was rapidly becoming the face of the GTA franchise. 

What happened to spark such an historic turnaround? It came down to a few factors. 

Read more

Games

GTA 6 Location Rumors: Vice City, London, Tokyo, Liberty City, and More

By John Saavedra

Games

GTA 6 Timeline and Era Rumors: When Will the Game Be Set?

By Matthew Byrd

First off, GTA Online did get better. Just a couple of years after its release, GTA Online’s content updates were not only more frequent but far more substantial. That’s especially true of one of the game’s 2015 updates which finally added the ability to participate in campaign-style heists with your friends. Those kinds of features contributed to the idea that the spirit of GTA 5 lived on indefinitely within GTA Online.

Not long after, GTA Online became the centerpiece of an unexpected rise in role-playing streams and YouTube videos. While the mode’s chaotic nature and expansive toolset made it an instant hit in the YouTube community, a new generation of creators were crafting characters, scenarios, and the kinds of storylines that felt painfully absent from the mode’s early days. There certainly seems to be a correlation between GTA’s increased sales over the last couple of years and the willingness of the game’s community to make their own fun and share their almost fanfic like adventures with others.

Yet, if you’re wondering how GTA has managed to become the second-highest selling game of all-time, and why it’s regularly on the best-selling games charts seven years after its release, then you have to talk about the title’s expanded progression system and the growing importance of the game’s microtransactions. 

GTA Online lets you place elaborate bets in a casino before you hop into your rocket-propelled supercar and go back to work as the CEO of a criminal enterprise. However, all of those things come at a price. GTA Online not only features one of the more extensive microtransaction systems in gaming but one of the more subtly wicked ones. Most major GTA Online content releases typically feature high-end pieces of content typically initially reserved for the game’s “whales.” For instance, buying the best office in the mode’s CEO update would have cost you 4 million in-game dollars (without any of the accessories). If you wanted to buy a microtransaction card that would instantly reward you with that much in-game cash, it would cost you about 60 real-life dollars. 

If you’re thinking “Wow, that’s about as much as GTA 5 costs,” then you’ve stumbled on the fiscal brilliance of the game’s microtransaction system. GTA Online‘s updates are free, but each typically introduces a ton of new items waiting to be purchased. While even the larger updates are not nearly the size of a proper new GTA game, it’s certainly possible to spend as much time with any of them as you would on a new GTA single-player game if you’re trying to unlock everything without spending money. Unlike GTA single-player games that sometimes leave you with a ton of cash and nothing to spend it on, GTA Online often leaves you feeling like you can never quite have enough money.

GTA Online is hardly unique in that respect, but few games come close to matching the “FOMO” feeling that it inspires. Actually, in a game all about characters, customization, and creating opportunities, you’re don’t just feel like you’re missing out by not being able to sail around on a yacht or afford the hottest new vehicle. What would be simple cosmetics in other live service games becomes much more substantial in GTA Online.

Believe it or not, though, this isn’t necessarily an indictment of GTA Online’s microtransactions nor is it a rant against the quality of the online mode itself. No, the most worrisome element of GTA Online’s success at this point is what it will do and has already done) to GTA 6 as well as those who never really got into the mode in the first place.

The earliest days of the GTA Online dream can be attributed to a desire to share our GTA campaign experiences with others indefinitely. In some ways, GTA Online grew to offer that experience, but it came with ironic compromises. You could play with others, but that means having to play with others. You can accomplish fantastic things not even possible in the campaign, but you’ll often essentially have to keep buying GTA games to instantly access them. You can experience infinite new stories but you are often required to write, direct, and act in them. 

GTA Online growing to be (in many ways) exactly what I dreamed it could be has led me to reexamine my wish. What I and others may not have fully appreciated at the time of GTA’s earlier days was that there was a pleasure in bouncing around a world of largely curated content that a community-driven game may never be able to replicate. It’s part of the reason why Skryim is one of the most successful and beloved games of all-time but not everyone who loved Skyrim is interested in The Elder Scrolls Online. Those kinds of online expansions aren’t simply “what you love, but more of it.” There is a beauty to the illusion of freedom in an open-world single-player game that may have felt prohibitive at a time when we wondered if a multiplayer game could ever offer such an experience but seems necessary at a time when too many games rely on the assumption that you want to be online all the time and constantly playing with others.

Over the years, Rockstar has made it very clear that our hopes for GTA 4-style single-player expansions for GTA 5 are largely in vain, despite the fact they once teased single-player DLC that was initially supposed to be released in 2014. Sometimes, the company is diplomatic about that content shift by stating that their decision to focus on GTA Online content just kind of happened organically. Other times, company representatives like Imran Sarwar throw cold water on the whole thing by suggesting that GTA 4’s brilliant expansions only happened because of a “big deal in place with Microsoft that meant we were obliged to make the expansions.”

Would we be playing GTA 6 if it wasn’t for GTA Online? Maybe not, but the success of that mode has almost certainly left us with a world where Rockstar has barely talked about a new GTA game in over seven years but has released versions of GTA 5 and GTA Online across three different generations of game consoles. 

We’re reaching a point when GTA 6’s release is just as likely to be fuelled by the hypothetical diminishing returns of GTA Online‘s revenue as it is Rockstar’s creative ambitions. While Rockstar has stated that they feel part of GTA Online’s success can be attributed to the idea that it offers a little something for everyone who likes different elements of the GTA games, GTA Online has never and will never offer an entirely new story with entirely new characters set in an entirely new world that is entirely ours to experience exactly as we see fit. No matter what new update comes out, how many great RP stories or told, or what possibilities some incredible new toy opens, GTA Online will never be GTA 6 as we imagine that game based on the precedent set by the previous releases in this incredible franchise.

And yet, there is this GTA game out there packed with fresh (and often exciting) content that you’ve never played if you stopped playing the game after finishing the GTA 5 campaign. It’s out there, but at the same time, it isn’t. Like the zombified remains of a former lover that we’ve wished back from the grave without considering exactly what we were asking for, GTA Online lingers temptingly outside the door even as we know that what we’ll find when we open it is exactly what we asked for but perhaps not what we really wanted.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

GTA Online continues to thrive thanks largely to its popularity amongst those who continue to pay for the game, but years later, it’s starting to feel like those who don’t play the mode as they wait for a proper new GTA have also been paying for too long.

The post How GTA Online Taught Us to Be Careful What We Wish For appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[travelingtheusaandeurope]

The Ultimate Camping Spots in Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National forest covers a significant location, however one of the most spectacular area of the park is Yosemite Valley. This sensibly little component of the park is open year-round, as well as house to one of the most popular destinations, including Yosemite Falls, Fifty Percent Dome, and also El Capitan. If you can shield a camping area at one of the outdoor camping websites in this field, it will save you an astounding amount of driving time. At the rear of the valley, near Curry Community (formerly Fifty percent Dome Community), and not much from Yosemite Village, are 3 wonderful outdoor camping locations: Reduced Pines, Upper Pines, and likewise North Pines. All 3 of these are clumped with each various other close to one another. The only various other camping area in the valley is the tent-only Camp 4, with an extensive background as a base for hill climbers. Still within the park, about a human resources's drive west of Yosemite Town, nonetheless on 2 different roadways, are Wawona Camping Area as well as Hodgdon Field Camping Location A range of little first-come, first-served outdoor camping websites are discovered along the Tioga Roadway (open in summertime only) in addition to a few various other areas around the park. On the eastern side of the Tioga Pass is Tuolumne Meadows Campground. From November until May or June, when the Tioga Road is closed, there is no access to the Yosemite Valley from this camping website. For complete information on each camping area see our listing of one of the most effective camping sites at Yosemite National Park. Hodgdon Field Outdoor Camping Area Hodgdon Field Outdoor camping area is a little much less than a hr's drive west of the heart of Yosemite Valley, off Freeway 120, yet still within the park. The magnum opus of this outdoor camping website is its simplicity and also year-round access. Nonetheless, this place has actually been heavily influenced by California's extended drought, in addition to many trees have been removed. For that reason, personal privacy along with shade are doing not have at much of the sites. The 105 websites are instead tiny, unequal, as well as additionally the ground is great dirt, making this an untidy area to camp. Places near the entrance are the least preferable. The surrounding area has actually been fire impacted. Reservations can be produced mid-April to mid-October as well as additionally can be scheduled about five months beforehand. Websites are first-come, first-served the rest of the year. North Pines Camping Website Establish amid impending pines, granite cliff walls, as well as along with a hurrying river, North Pines Camping website has a beautiful setup, a superb location, and a woodsy feel. Located at the back of the Yosemite Valley, near Curry Village, you can stroll right from this camping site to some neighboring treking tracks. With just 81 internet sites, a great deal of which are large along with well spaced, it is generally silent, as well as countless websites provide personal privacy. Waterside web sites are extremely stunning. Tents, Motor homes as long as 40 feet in size, along with trailers approximately 35 feet are welcome here. This outdoor camping website opens up in April and additionally confines really early November. Sites are reservable as much as five months beforehand and also are launched in a block on the 15th of the month. Upper Pines Camping Website. With 238 campsites, Upper Pines Outdoor camping area is the largest of the 3 camping locations in the Yosemite Valley. Split right into a variety of specific loopholes, this doesn't appear like a large camping site, as well as uncovering your means around is basic. Globs of massive pines as well as also cedars deal a mix of color as well as also sunshine, in addition to in between are views to the surrounding valley wall surfaces. The majority of sites are rather open as well as offer little personal privacy. You can quickly walk from listed below to the begin of numerous trailheads. Websites are smaller sized than those at North Pines Camping website, as well as devices lengths are limited to 35 feet for Recreational vehicles as well as 24 feet for trailers. This outdoor camping location is open year-round. Like North Pines, sites are reservable about five months ahead of time as well as released in a block on the 15th of the month. Reduced Pines Camping Area Lower Pines is the tiniest of the three outdoor camping areas near Curry Village. With a mix of pines and deciduous trees, this is a very satisfying camping location, with sights in all instructions. Websites in the facility are rather open and also revealed, with much more personal and also well-treed sites along the sides. One side of the camping location leaves the river. In the spring, the camping website is susceptible to flooding, along with websites in this area are commonly shut as a result of flooding. If you have really set up a site along this side in Might or June on a year when the river is high, your consultation might be ended, leaving you hurrying to find a location to continue to be under the wire. This camping area has 60 web sites along with is open from the end of March to the beginning of November. Motor homes up to 40 feet in length as well as additionally trailers roughly 35 feet are accepted. You can schedule websites as much as 5 months beforehand. Web sites are released in a block on the 15th of the month. Camp 4. Camp 4 is renowned among climber. In the 1960s along with 1970s, popular climbers encamped below throughout the going up season, containing such popular names as Royal Robbins as well as Warren Harding. The background of this specific camping website is so essential in the background of rock climbing up that the camping area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, this campground is still very carefully gotten in touch with the going up society. Embed in the heart of the Yosemite Valley, near Yosemite Falls, this camping site has its very own one-of-a-kind ambiance, along with it's other than everybody. Set among big evergreen, the 35 outside camping tents web sites are all walk-in simply from the surrounding parking area, in addition to shared, with 6 individuals designated per outdoor camping site. From mid-May to mid-September, camping areas are assigned via a lotto game system someday ahead of your wanted night. You will absolutely need to pay a $10 charge as well as register on a per-person basis in addition to camp with whoever is assigned to the six-person camping site with you. From mid-September to mid-May, Camp 4 operates on a first-come, first-served basis. In the spring as well as fall, you need to straighten at 8:30 in the early morning (ideally earlier if you want to be made certain of an internet site) as well as register with the ranger. In the cold weather, the camping location seldom fills out, as well as self enrollment remains in area. Remember that if you are right below with a team, you may be broken up. Pets are not allowed. Camping outdoors tents and also Cabins at Curry Town Although it's extra pricey than bringing your extremely own tools and additionally leasing an outdoor camping site, you can rent canvas outdoor camping tent cabins or small, rustic cabins at Curry Town. An overall quantity of 319 cabins are readily available. They are really carefully spaced however stay in a terrific location Each exterior tents cabin has a wood flooring, cot-style beds, as well as light, as well as additionally some have gas heat easily offered from fall up till spring. The outdoors tents do not have electrical outlets. The camping tents are completely outfitted with linens and treatments. Washrooms as well as showers are just a short leave, and also daily residence cleansing is included. Rustic wood cabins are furnished in a similar fashion. Of the 70 conveniently available, 56 have running water and bathrooms. All have warmth and also electrical outlets. For those 14 cabins without restrooms, showers as well as additionally bathrooms are shown to the nearby camping outdoor tents campers. These cabins additionally feature everyday housekeeping solution. Wawona Outdoor camping location. Positioned near the south entranceway along Highway 41, on the road going into the park from the directions of Fresno, Wawona is virtually a hr drive from Yosemite Valley, and additionally longer if you run into traffic congestion and blockage. Nevertheless, if you can not protect outdoor camping in the valley, this is the complying with finest alternate if you desire an outdoor camping website you can schedule. The camping location is developed together with the South Fork Merced River, in addition to sites are spread out amongst pines. The elevation below is around 4,000 feet. Loophole A, situated closest to the campground entrance, is rather open, and also Loopholes B as well as also C offer much more personal privacy and additionally a little better setting. Loop A is open all year-round, and Loopholes B and likewise C are open seasonally from spring up until autumn. The camping site's 93 web sites can suit outdoors tents, Recreational vehicles, and also trailers approximately 35 feet in size. Appointments are offered five months in advance April using September, and websites are launched on a block basis on the 15th of monthly. Sites are first-come, first-served from October to April. Bordering attractions include the Mariposa Grove, with a grove of big sequoias, as well as the Leader Yosemite Background Facility. Summerdale Outdoor camping site About 1.5 miles outside the south entryway to the park on Freeway 41 is the individually run Summerdale Outdoor camping site. Sites are spread around a main area as well as collection amongst cottonwoods, cedars, as well as additionally sugar pines. A river moves along one side of the outdoor camping location. The outdoor camping website offers 30 essential sites and additionally rise commodes, in addition to water is offered. Each internet site has a getaway table and fire ring. Animals price. Sites are reservable 6 months ahead of time on a moving day basis. Indian Flat Recreational Vehicle Park On Highway 140, heading in the direction of Merced, the individually run Indian Flat Motor Home Park is an excellent option if you can not locate a campground in the park or are seeking even more functions. The park makes use of 25 tent and also 25 Motor Home web sites, some with full links, and also guests can access the outdoor swimming pool at the bordering lodge. Large, leafed trees provide great deals of shade and additionally a woodsy feel. Generators are not made it possible for. Tuolumne Meadows Camping Area If you are seeing the park in summertime season in addition to interested about looking into the walks in addition to websites along the Tioga Roadway, Tuolumne Meadows Campground is an outstanding alternative. The elevation right here is 8,600 feet, so also in summertime, nights can be actually great. The Tioga Roadway is enclosed winter season, and likewise this campground normally does not open up till July as well as also encloses September. The camping area can fit outdoors tents, Recreational vehicles, and additionally trailers around 35 feet. The 304 web sites are a mix of first-come, first-served and likewise reservable. Reservable websites can be booked about 5 months ahead of time, along with websites are launched on the 15th of monthly. The camping area has flush commodes along with secure and also tidy water nevertheless no links. Exterior outdoor camping Facts Bookings for campgrounds in the park can be made online. To attempt your good luck getting a campground at a first-come, first-served campground, show up early in the day and have a back-up technique.

[illionoisprelawland-blog]

From A Hobby To An Industry: The Evolution Of Video Games

By Brian Uhler, University of Chicago Class of 2021

July 21, 2020

Within the last few decades, technological advancements and a dedicated community have led to the rapid development of a new, exciting industry: video gaming. Initially a very small scene with little worldwide recognition, video gaming has only recently vaulted onto the main stage. The parents of today’s children certainly did not have the exposure to video games that their children do today; this industry has risen to international prominence seemingly overnight within a generation. But how did this happen? How did a few new computer chips and some hardcore video game players turn a simple hobby into an industry now worth billions of dollars?

 Interestingly enough, video games actually find their true origin in the labs of scientists. One of the earliest games, Spacewar!, a simple computer game about space combat, was invented by Steve Russell at MIT in 1962. It was not until 1972 that an actual home console was developed – a console whose sole purpose was for video games, rather than games merely being programs to be installed on a computer. This first console, “The Odyssey”, was developed at Sanders Associates, Inc, (3) led by Ralph Baer. Baer is often thought of as the father of video games, but although he was the first, he was far from the last. In 1977, Atari released their own console, the Atari 2600, which proved to be the first real competition to The Odyssey. However, the video game industry had a substantial decline in 1983 due to a multitude of factors, including an oversaturated game market and a lot of over-hyped, low-quality games. The video game industry began to recover in 1985 with the release of Nintendo’s NES system, which had improved graphics and gameplay. This was Nintendo’s first big splash in the gaming industry (it had previously been a playing card manufacturer), and many of its early titles such as Super Mario Bros. still survive today.(3) Fast forward to the 21st century and we see Microsoft and Sony enter the fray, with the former releasing the Xbox console and the latter releasing the Playstation console. These three companies have mostly dominated the home console gaming industry, and they constantly compete for the ever-growing video game fanbase.

But advances in video game technology alone did not create an industry – to do that, a small but determined group of hardcore gamers was needed. Along with the technological advancements was the advancement of its followers, and most notably, its competitors. This industry is not unlike a sport; in fact, video game competitions are referred to as eSports (electronic sports). The first every eSports event happened in 1972 when people competed in Spacewar!, one of the first video games ever created. As the competitive gaming scene progressed, it became clear that the competitive drive of these players was similar, if not identical, to that of professional athletes; many people find a home in the gaming industry, and all players compete under their personal alias called a “gamertag.”The evolution of this competition was able to come to the forefront of the world stage with the rise of the Internet, allowing players to play across the world. (4) When it became clear that the video game industry was ripe to become something more than just a hobby, companies began to take notice. Twitch is a website used by gamers to stream footage of themselves playing to viewers across the world. (1) In 2014, Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million, an obviously enormous sum of money. Clearly, Amazon thinks that investing in the video game industry is a smart move in the long term. Furthermore, video gaming does make a lot of money; League of Legends, an extremely popular multiplayer game, generated $1.5 billion in revenue in 2019 alone, to say nothing of the countless other popular video games on the market.

As the market for competing and streaming video games evolves, there is no more notable video game player than Tyler Blevins, better known by his gamertag, “Ninja.” Ninja, famous for streaming the multiplayer game “Fortnite”, makes nearly $1 million per month through his gaming. (5) He makes this money in a variety of ways – through streaming on Twitch, through posting video content to Youtube, and debatably most importantly, through big-name sponsors like Redbull and Samsung. The reason that sponsorships like this are potentially the most important source of Ninja’s income is that it proves that there is a rising commercial value in the video gaming industry; if in 1980 you asked a company the size of Redbull if they would ever consider investing in video games, you would get a much different answer than you would get today. As well as large, international corporations that have invested in eSports, some companies are being created with the sole purpose of supporting video gaming. These eSports companies sponsor notable players and assemble teams for competition, much like professional sports teams. For example, Ninja is partnered with Luminosity Gaming.

However, much like professional athletes, video gaming is not without its risks. Injuries are actually fairly common, especially to the hands and wrists. Super Smash Bros. Melee, a Nintendo fighting game created in 2001, is widely regarded as one of the most technical and difficult video games ever created. In 2014, Aziz “Hax” Al-Yami suffered a crippling hand injury due to his beloved game. (10) He said that while practicing he felt an “explosion” in his wrist, and when he went to a doctor to check it out, he found out that much of the cartilage in his thumb had calcified into bone due to years of physical stress from the game. Plus, Hax’s story is not just one anomaly; many top professionals have also experienced injuries that have caused them to need an extended break from the game or to retire altogether. Super Smash Bros. Melee is especially notorious for hand injuries; players routinely press more than six buttons per second, with each game lasting around 3 minutes. (8) Tournament matches are typically a first-to-three set, meaning that they play anywhere between three and five games each match. If they play an average set, say, four games, then they will have played the game for 12 minutes, which is 720 seconds and thus an average of 4,320 buttons in a single tournament match. A typical major tournament will have nearly 2,000 entrants, and in such tournaments, the top players have to play more than a dozen sets over the course of the tournament. For example, Adam “Armada” Lindgren, the winner of the 2015 tournament “Genesis 3”, played 13 total sets in his path to victory. (9) This means he likely pressed over 50,000 buttons to win the tournament, a number that is at the very least startling. So, with video games on the rise and corporations starting to funnel money into the scene, what can be done about possible injuries to the players?

It is common for professional sports teams to have a physical therapist travel with them to their competitions. Is it such a wild idea to think that the same strategy may be a viable option for video game players? As it turns out, this idea is not as strange as it may initially sound. A company called “1-hp” does exactly this. The name itself, “1-hp” is a video game reference; “hp” refers to health points, while “1” is the lowest possible amount of health points a player can have in a video game before their character dies. Run by two physical therapists, 1-hp specializes in managing and preventing injuries to video game players. The idea behind this is much like it would be for a professional sports team; these eSports organizations essentially invest in players, and therefore, they want to make sure their players are healthy. In terms of business, a player getting injured and being unable to recover could result in the loss of a competition, the loss of the player’s career, and a substantial loss of money. Imagine your favorite NFL team is about to play in the Superbowl, but the starting quarterback’s ankle hurts. That player’s injury could affect the outcome of the game, the money made from the game, and probably the player’s career. So, teams are willing to pay for top-notch treatment for their players to keep them as healthy as possible. Thus, like professional sports teams, video game organizations also want to keep their players in the best shape possible.

From its humble beginnings to its international recognition, the evolution of the video gaming industry is certainly a rapid and impressive one. With corporations stepping in to support the scene and medical professionals doing their best to ensure the health of the competitors, the video game industry is going nowhere but forward in the years to come.

________________________________________________________________

(1) Yaden, Joseph. “What Is Twitch?” Digital Trends, Digital Trends, 6 May 2020,

www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/what-is-twitch/.

(2) Gittleson, Kim. “Amazon Buys Video-Game Streaming Site Twitch.” BBC News, BBC, 25

Aug. 2014, www.bbc.com/news/technology-28930781.

(3) History.com Editors. “Video Game History.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 1 Sept.

2017, www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-video-games.

(4)Gaming, Bountie. “The History and Evolution of Esports.” Medium, Medium, 11 Jan. 2018, medium.com/@BountieGaming/the-history-and-evolution-of-esports-8ab6c1cf3257.

(5)Montag, Ali. “How Gamer Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins Went from Working at a Fast Food Joint to

Making Almost $1 Million a Month Playing Fortnite.” CNBC, CNBC, 4 Jan. 2019, www.cnbc.com/2019/01/04/ninja-blevins-from-a-fast-food-job-to-millionaire-fortnite-gamer.html.

(6)Martinello, Eva. “League of Legends Generated $1.5 Billion Revenue in 2019.” Dot Esports,

3 Jan. 2020, dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/league-of-legends-generated-1-5-billion-revenue-in-2019.

(7)“Work With Us.” 1HP, 13 Mar. 2018, www.1-hp.org/work-with-me/.

(8) The Smash Brothers: Episode 1 – Show Me Your Moves. EastPointPictures, 26 Nov. 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSf2mgkRm7Q

(9)“Tournament:GENESIS 3.” SmashWiki, www.ssbwiki.com/Tournament:GENESIS_3.

(10)Lee, Daniel. “Hax's Retirement, and the Uncertain World of Esports Injuries.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 29 Apr. 2016, www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/15428951/hax-retirement-why-injuries-smash-bros-melee-esports-problem-needs-solved.

(11)“Smasher:Mango.” SmashWiki, www.ssbwiki.com/Smasher:Mango.

[storm-driver]

The Data Theory

This theory was originally developed by derekscorner and revised last night. I delve into the theory a little bit myself and came up with something pretty incredible. Again, most of this theory is in credit to derekscorner. All I’ve done is branch it out a little more. You can read the original post along with what I came up with here.

Kingdom Hearts is never entirely clear on how it’s universe works. The only trustworthy information you can get is spoken by characters in cut scenes, usually rather vague and said with symbolism, or it’s hidden somewhere in the “Reports” you recover throughout all of the games.

Because of this, the game can constantly flex it’s rules to bring about more scenarios and fix discrepancies it might have had in the past. But assuming, with the release 1.5+2.5 for the PS4, all of those discrepancies were fixed and the game is official, theories about this game will now become all the more relevant. And sensible.

Most things in Kingdom Hearts can be explained away in a rather convoluted essay. However, there are still select few scenarios that fans can’t seem to tackle because it wouldn’t make sense for how the game’s universe operates. One of these leading scenarios is the issue of bringing the lost Nobodies back into existence. I’m talking about Roxas, Naminé, and Xion.

“But it’s easy!” You say with excitement. “Sora just needs to release their hearts and they’ll be here!”

Well, in a sense, you’re right. But it also wouldn’t make sense regarding how the game works. Not many people remember them because they weren’t really relevant until now, but the Secret Ansem reports obtained in Kingdom Hearts II describe how an individual being works:

Secret Ansem Report #4

Three elements combine to create a life: a heart, a soul, and a body. But what of the soul and body left behind when the heart is lost? When the soul leaves the body, its vessel, life gives way to death, but what about when the heart leaves? A being does not perish when its heart leaves its body. The heart alone disappears into the darkness.

The body is quite obviously the body of a person, which is just their vessel. Their heart is basically their personality and memories, as well as “power”, which is stored inside their body. And the soul is not really their spirit, but rather just the life-force or energy used to make a body living.

This is where things start to get confusing. Regarding Sora releasing the hearts of Roxas, Naminé, and Xion, it could only POTENTIALLY work for Roxas. It’s best if we explain what each character’s scenario is.

Roxas, even though he doesn’t look like Sora, nor even has his voice or personality, is still Sora’s Nobody. His creation was brought about by Sora’s sacrifice. Sora’s heart was cast into the darkness, reforming as a Heartless, whilst his body and soul reformed in the Realm Between as Roxas. Roxas had Ventus’ heart within him because Ven’s heart didn’t leave Sora’s body upon him stabbing himself with the Keyblade. Because of this, his body reformed to somewhat compare to Ventus. Though there still isn’t an explanation as to why his clothing isn’t identical. Maybe we’ll never know.

So Roxas was created from Sora’s body and soul and could only be recreated if Sora became a Heartless again, giving up his body and soul for Roxas’ possession.

Naminé is something different altogether, but somewhat similar in how she exists. She was created when Sora released Kairi’s heart from within him, but she doesn’t actually have the qualities of a Nobody that normally others do. Because Kairi has a heart of pure light, she literally can’t create a Heartless. When her heart was stolen, her body kinda just slumped over like a sleeping puppet, kinda like what happened to Ventus. But it’s the fact that her body DIDN’T reform as a Nobody, but stayed in the Realm of Light. What ACTUALLY created Naminé was Sora releasing her heart from within his body. This leads me and some others to believe a fraction of him went off to form Roxas while another to form Naminé. It also kinda adds up as to why Naminé has blonde hair, because Ventus’ heart influenced her appearance slightly. And why her appearance is so basic, because it’s not a real body whatsoever.

So Naminé doesn’t have any body or soul, but she was created from borrowed fragments of Sora’s and influenced by Sora and Ventus’ hearts.

Xion is a pretty straightforward one. She isn’t an actual Nobody, but a puppet that had a soul stuffed inside it. She also has memories of Kairi from when Vexen “tested” Sora in Chain of Memories. But because Sora’s memories of Kairi were being shadowed by Naminé, she appeared like a shadow of Kairi. Her entire existence is dependent on these memories remaining inside her body. But because she decided that Sora needs to awaken, she willingly gave them up to Roxas and her body perished without its fundamental core. And without that core, all memories built on top of it crashed down and the chain was destroyed, leading everyone to forget Xion ever existed. The links of her memories were buried in Sora’s heart.

So Xion’s entire existence was dependent on Sora’s memories of Kairi and without them, her body couldn’t stand. And because all of her memories are broken in Sora’s heart, she is woven into his being.

“But wait!” You say with confidence. “Sora returned to the Realm of Light without his body and soul when Kairi brought him back!”

And there you are, calling out the holes in the theory. Hate it when people do that. This is best explained by looking somewhere completely different in the series: the creation of Vanitas.

Oh yeah, our mean bean who wants to murder everyone and gave Haley Joel Osment the time of his life getting to laugh so deviously. Vanitas’ creation isn’t too hard to understand: when the darkness of Ventus’ heart got ripped out of his body, it reformed as a being of darkness, Vanitas. And this is the cool part: Vanitas DIDN’T use Ventus’ body to form himself, but rather the power of darkness itself. He created his body through sheer force of manipulating the darkness within him, or perhaps Xehanort did it. My point still stands either way: if a being of pure darkness is capable of creating a body of pure darkness, could a being of pure light create a body of pure light?

Yes, you heard me. Kairi didn’t bring Sora’s body back from the Realm Between, but rather made him a new one out of the light within her heart. This did, however, make Sora an incomplete person. Because he no longer had a real body, I would think his life would be more on the line than ever. He is literally a floating heart surrounded by light at this point, making Darkness all the more lethal to the boy. But that’s not too important right now.

Because it’s dangerous for Sora to just be a heart surrounded by light, especially with Xehanort still trying to turn him into a vessel, him just giving up his body for Roxas would be rather dangerous. Even if Kairi pulled him back from the darkness, there’s no guarantee the same thing would happen again. And you can’t repeat the actions for Naminé without somehow hurting Kairi in the process.

So our issue here is lack of body and soul. Roxas can’t just take Sora’s body again, it would leave Sora in harm’s way. Naminé being created out of fragments of a body, or even just sheer nothingness, won’t work again. And recreating Xion would require that they know where this puppet lab is and how everything there works.

Each of these situations, each person is under special circumstances. But there has always been one definite and constant thing that has been able to manifest itself in the real world without harm: the data used in Ansem’s computer.

Yeah. Data. Just the 1’s and 0’s. Need an example?

1) The munny pouch that belonged to data-Olette in Twilight Town. Riku was able to retrieve it from within the data-world and BRING IT INTO THE REAL WORLD. He handed it off to Mickey, who gave it to Sora for them to buy train tickets.

See, that always bugged me. Really badly. That train we just took is a MAGIC TRAIN that’s ONLY HERE FOR US. Why in the world would we need to pay for tickets to go on this train that Yen Sid sent for US? There’s no one on the train checking for tickets! YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE THEY JUST WALK RIGHT ON WITHOUT ARGUMENT. There wasn’t any reason for that munny pouch to be handed off to Sora unless they wanted to make it BLATANTLY OBVIOUS that DATA CAN BE BROUGHT INTO THE REAL WORLD.

2) The Heartless invasion by the MCP. This one is the less obvious, but complete giveaway.  Those Heartless used during the invasion were, quite obviously, not meant to be in Radiant Garden. The MCP was spawning them there using data.

Yes! He used data to spawn the Heartless. Their models and code already existed in the computer, so he just turned on the Heartless Manufactory and went to work. And also, THE HEARTLESS MANUFACTORY! It literally CREATES BEINGS FROM DATA! This is a dead giveaway that data can be used to CREATE REAL LIFE THINGS!

And in Dream Drop Distance on the Grid, it’s constantly hinted at the fact that the device used to bring Sora and company in and out of Space Paranoids can work BOTH WAYS! In the actual movie, IT HAPPENED! A data person was brought out of the Grid and into the real world!

Data can be made into real, physical objects. And evidenced by the ending to Tron:Legacy, they can be alive, as well.

Now, how can I truly persuade you that this theory is correct? I was pondering this for a long time. While I first read about it, I was thinking to myself that this is completely bizarre and there’s no way the games would go this route. But as I looked into things myself and stared at the wall of Kingdom Hearts theories I’ve had over the years, it clicked. This was meant to happen. Allow me to explain.

The data version of Ansem and his research that was discovered inside Sora’s heart. This is huge. It seemed like a random thing that Nomura and crew threw into the game because… reasons. But it’s not. What if I told you that this data Riku found was actually research about how data can be brought into the real world and, in turn, can be used to recreate a person?

Ansem was researching the Nobodies and must’ve discovered something about using the data to make bodies for them. He must’ve told Naminé to some degree about this, giving her hope that she and Roxas wouldn’t actually disappear. This is what leads to Coded (Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded).

“WHAT?! CODED?!” Yeah, I know! Coded is ACTUALLY RELEVANT? Incredible! Anyways, it starts like this:

Naminé placed a data version of herself, as well as the memories inside Sora’s heart, in the journal. Because these weren’t supposed to be here, the journal got all messed up. After repairing it, Data-Riku was able to find this hidden data and Data-Sora was sent to investigate. He found the hidden memories as well as Naminé telling him that Sora needs to call these memories to the surface in order to awaken their hearts. From their, the Keyblade to Return Hearts, as mentioned in previous games, would be used to extract their hearts from within Sora and return them to existence. 

“Okay, cool. So Coded is hardly relevant.” OH, BUT I’M NOT DONE! Coded gets way more important. It’s actually the fundamental base for this part of the theory. And it’s mind-blowing how well this fits into place!

I’m gonna break away and give you guys a little lesson on 3D printing. In order to actually 3D print you need something that can fabricate what you’re trying to print. Once you have the device, you need a model. A good example of a model is like a ring. That ring was initially created or scanned into a model file so that the printer would be able to create it. You essentially make something out of data. So I’ve been thinking...

The transfer device in Ansem’s lab is basically a 3D printer, but it works both ways. It’s for someone to enter or exit the data-world. It’s MEANT to transfer atoms to data and data to atoms. It’s how they’re going to fabricate the bodies of data for Roxas, Naminé and Xion. It doesn’t even matter if you’re thinking of the lab in Twilight Town or the lab in Radiant Garden, because BOTH were built by Ansem!

But then comes the issue of the model they must “print” out. We need to create models of each of our little Nobodies from scratch. Huh? “Use Ventus as a model for Roxas?” Haha, well, you’re onto something. I’d completely agree with you to use Ventus as a basic model for Roxas were it not for the fact that we already HAVE a model of Roxas that’s already been created. The same can be said for Xion and Naminé. We have them already.

The models are already present in the journal in Coded.

Don’t believe me? Well, take a second glance at the Re:Coded HD Remaster from 2.5! 

HE’S THERE! Roxas already has a FULL MODEL of his body in the journal, complete with voice and body build, as well as his face and his hair, as seen underneath the hood. All you need to do is drop his heart into it and export the data using the terminal in Ansem’s lab!

Naminé PLACED all of this data inside the journal, not just for Mickey and company to find it and inform Sora about the memories inside him, but so they could USE the data to CREATE BODIES FOR OUR LOST FRIENDS.

“Wait a second! This is really cool and all, but wouldn’t Ansem’s computer already have some of this data then, effectively making Coded useless again?”

Man, we all really hate Coded, don’t we? My answer to that is: no, Ansem’s computer wouldn’t have this information on it nor would the models exist there. Why? Because, as BLATANTLY SPOKEN by Ansem and Riku themselves, and clearly evidenced multiple times throughout the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II, their data-Twilight Town has been completely compromised. Nobodies are everywhere and searching for Roxas. If the Organization found any of this information that Ansem and Naminé had discovered, everything would be over. So, in a panic, Ansem wiped his computer of anything having to do with data in correlation to Nobodies and hid it inside Sora, hoping they would find it. Naminé would hide the information about Sora’s hidden memories and the models that could be used inside the journal to be discovered later. Because Naminé was taken somewhere safe by Axel, she never got the chance to tell Sora about it. And seeing how Ansem immediately felt the need to begin his revenge scheme against Xehanort, he just left the boy to his own devices.

Seeing the main plot of Coded be revealed with Castle Oblivion in the end, I have no doubts that this theory is correct. The focus of the game is to figure out what Naminé hid in the journal. I feel like data-Roxas’ role in the journal is important here. He was meant to get Sora to understand the painful memories inside him and that it was Sora’s role to wake them up and return them to existence. I’m still not entirely sure how he can tie into this theory, but I know he’s a strong point of it.

But in short, here’s what we came up with:

Data can be used to recreate bodies for the Nobodies who disappeared.

The data transfer device in Ansem’s lab can be used to fabricate these bodies.

The journal informs Sora on how to wake up the hearts inside him.

The journal holds the models required to fabricate the bodies.

[delhi-architect2]

Journal - How to Create Photorealistic Architectural Renderings Using Unreal Engine 4

Ronen Bekerman is an industry leader in Architectural Visualization who hosts in-depth tutorials on his specialist blog. Architizer is pleased to present a selection of these guides written by some of the world’s best rendering artists.

Keeping on the trail we took in the previous installment of this series, “A Photographic Approach to Architectural Visualization“, we will check how these effects can be transported into the world of real-time, more specifically with Unreal Engine as the champion of game engines making their way into the realm of ArchViz. To present this case, let’s take a trip down memory lane starting at the point that sparked it all for me and for the ArchViz community at large as well.

Here, Lasse Rode of Berlin-based studio xoio takes Unreal Engine for a good spin as he strives for photorealism using a real-time tool. He does this with his great-looking, and mostly white, Berlin Flat scene as seen on the forums. Follow along as Lasse explains getting started with Unreal Engine 4. Enjoy it!

Introduction

My name is Lasse Rode, and I am part of studio xoio. We are a small agency specializing in visualization and illustration works for architecture and product marketing. Usually we work in a kind of “traditional” 3D environment utilizing applications such as 3ds Max and the like. We are constantly checking out new rendering engines and currently making big use of Corona Renderer, V-Ray and Octane. Each engine has its strengths, and we always try to use it like that: each for the best purpose.

Lasse Rode’s modeling techniques enable realistic renderings to be created in a relatively short amount of time; images via Corona Renderer.

Back in August 2014, I stumbled upon some drop dead gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 architectural visualization tests by Frenchman Koola, which immediately reminded me “The Third & The Seventh” by Alex Roman, only this time it was done in REAL-time.

In my eyes there have been several main trends within our industry: The strive for (photo)realism and becoming faster — if not real time. Not having to wait for your rendering to come out of your render farm was always a dream for us — especially when rendering animations!

For a long time, the main downside of the “real-time-thing” was the lack of quality you could achieve compared with pre-rendered still images or animations. So even though it looked very interesting, the application of it in a visualization context seemed hard to imagine. And honestly, the “gamey” look of it made it hard to sell for high-demanding clients from the architecture and brand fields.

This has changed rapidly. The results possible with real-time engines today are very beautiful and convincing!

Why Unreal Engine?

The release of UE4 gained a lot of attention within our industry, and the possibilities seemed to be endless. The PBR (Physically Based Rendering) material system and the easy-to-use importing pipeline for getting your models into the Unreal Engine were the most compelling reasons for us to give it a try — in addition to the quality of output possible! If you have seen the work of Koola (also available as a download in the Unreal Engine Marketplace), which went viral some weeks ago, you are probably as convinced as we are that Unreal Engine 4 is capable of impressive quality.

In the following article, I want to give you an outline of the workflow I used to make the Berlin Flat scene you can download from the Marketplace and share some techniques and tricks I came across during the process. Some of them I found myself, while others are derived from information I found on the web. The Unreal Engine Forums and Documentation are a vast and great resource, as are the starter content that comes with the engine and the assets and scenes you can get from the Marketplace.

The Berlin Flat

I made a series of images of this flat in a historic building in Berlin at the beginning of 2013 using 3ds Max with the Corona Renderer. It’s a flexible way of handling the color-mapping, which really helped to pull off the very whitish mood of the whole set. This actually was also the reason for choosing it when giving UE4 a try.

I noticed UE4 being very successfully used on scenes with gloomy lighting and busy textures. I suspected it to be not that easy to get precise shadows and GI within an ultra-white interior. And honestly: It is a tricky task!

Above is one of the original renders done with 3ds Max and Corona Renderer. To have a look at the entire set, click here. Below is the UE4 video made with this scene …

Viewing on mobile? Click here.

The Original Scene

The entire model was done in 3ds Max in a rush, so I actually detailed only the parts that are visible in the final images. Of course, this is an approach that is not possible in a real-time environment. Repurposing the scene for use with Unreal Engine, I had to reduce the scope a bit because furnishing and detailing the complete space would have taken too much time for testing purposes. I decided to export only two rooms: the ones you see on the lower part of the screenshot below.

Exporting the Geometry for Unreal Engine

This is a very easy task IF you keep some things in mind!

It makes sense to split things up a bit. Because the lightmass is calculated with a separate map for every object, it is good to be a bit careful with high values especially on big plain objects like walls and ceiling. Because of this, I only exported the inner faces of the walls that we actually see.

I also added a bit to the top and bottom of the walls to intersect them later with the ceilings. I found this to be a good way to prevent “light leaks” — lighting artifacts that happen when geometry is not closed or not intersecting. This is no problem when having a gloomy scene with lots of busy textures, but because we are going to have an ultra-white space, it is important to get as precise GI as possible, especially in the corners.

The second crucial thing is to create unwrapped UV coordinated for the channel the GI is going to be stored in by Unreal Engine’s lightmass calculation. In 3ds Max, this would be UV-channel 2.

Channel 1 is for use by all the other textures like diffuse, roughness, normal, etc. Unreal Engine counts the channels starting from 0, which can cause some confusion in the beginning — but once you get it, it is fairly simple.

Note: Unwrapping is only important for the light-map channel! For the texture channel, any kind of mapping can work, such as cubic or cylindrical mapping. In most cases, a simple “flatten mapping” in 3ds Max unwrap does the job to create sufficient UV-coordinates!

If you want to put your scene together in UE4 like it has been in your Max-scene, it is good to leave the entire “space” in place when exporting because the object’s coordinates are easier to align. For single objects like chairs and other assets, it is very comfortable to export it only once and install them in your Unreal Engine scene. For this purpose, it is good to move them near the center of your 3ds Max scene because the new object’s pivot in Unreal Engine will be there.

I used high-poly geometry without any LOD (Level of Detail) simplification. This is only recommended in small scenes like this one, but because I’m after a smooth experience and don’t want to have any jagged edges on my furniture, this was logical for me. I have no doubt there’s room for optimization, though!

Make sure your assets are merged into one object and have different material-IDs applied to handle the different materials later in UE4. Then, save your geometry as an FBX file and off you go over to the Unreal Engine editor!

Importing Into Unreal Engine 4

Importing FBX files into Unreal Engine 4 works pretty smooth! I did it in several steps.

I prepared different files that made sense:

The geometry of the room in a separate FBX file

Different file for the assets, each with some objects in them

Just make sure to uncheck the “Combine Meshes” to receive your objects separately and not baked into a single mesh!

Materials

I’m a very straightforward guy and a big fan of simple setups! It’s a philosophical thing, but achieving things with the least effort possible is far superior to using a setup only you understand or you can’t remember when opening a scene half a year later.

So this example of a shader is very simple, consisting of a diffuse map, desaturated and blended with black color. The same map is then color corrected and inverted to put into the roughness channel of the material. Done.

A normal map would have been too much here, but feel free to explore the materials for yourself in the scene!

Here you see the wood material applied to the chairs and the table — a dark dyed wood with a crisp matte reflection revealing the wood structure and texture.

In this image you see two more materials that might be of interest: firstly the curtain, which is backlit by sunlight and is a two-sided material:

You have to set the Shading Model to “Subsurface” and add a constant node with a value smaller than 1 and wire it to the Opacity property of your material to get this effect.

Secondly, the jar in the foreground has a very simple glass material:

It has a fairly dark diffuse color, zero roughness and a high specular value. I also involved a Fresnel-node with a value of 1.5 to control the opacity and refraction. There are a lot more complex ways to generate more realistic glass — but I honestly had some trouble to really get control over that, so this easy glass seems to be good enough.

Note that I checked “Two Sided” and set Translucency Lighting Mode to “TLM Surface” in the Details tab on the left.

One other material I want to show here as well is the floor because this one is the only one to have a normal map applied:

Here you see a material defined by a diffuse color, a roughness texture and a normal map. The diffuse color is a simple very light gray, defined by a 4-value constant.

Roughness looks a bit more complex: On the left, you see the same map three times scaled differently with a TexCoord node. The red channel of each is then multiplied with the others and then wired as an alpha into a Linear interpolation node (Lerp) to blend to values; 0.3 and 0.2 in this example to get a subtle noisy reflection on the floor planks. This is then fine tuned with a “Power” node to get just the right amount of roughness that looks OK.

The normal map again is influenced by a TexCoord and is then flattened a fair amount via a “FlattenNormal” node to get a subtle relief on the material.

Preparing the Assets

Before dropping the assets into your scene, it is always best to apply the materials onto them within the geometry editor. You only have to do it once and can still apply different materials in the main scene if needed. This is a fast process: Here you see it is important to apply different Material-IDs to your objects to put the different materials where they belong!

Building the Scene

This is kind of brief, but: Put the thing together. First you have to drag in the room geometry. The best way is to select all the parts needed and drag and drop them into the empty scene. Afterwards all the furniture and assets have to be placed in the environment.

Here you don’t see the back faces of the outer walls. As I’ve explained above: They are only single-sided for better lightmass calculation.

For this exact purpose it is also good to set the lightmap resolution for your larger objects to a high value, for the walls I set it at 2048, for example.

As mentioned above, light leaks can be an issue. To prevent these, I put black boxes around the whole scene. It looks kind of messy from the outside — though more clean on the inside!

Lighting and Lightmass

The lighting is also a fairly simple setup: I used the “Koola method” — a combination of a sun and planes with spotlights in front of the window to simulate a skylight. It is rather effective and easy to control!

To calculate the global illumination, only a few tweaks are important:

I drastically increased the lighting bounces and the indirect lighting quality. I also decreased the smoothness to 0.6. Details are pronounced better and the shadows don’t wash away so much.

Further to this, I set the direct lighting to a dynamic shadow, which is important to have the light moving later in the animation!

The last step before hitting “Build” is to set the Lighting Quality to “Production”!

This should result in smooth lighting everywhere.

Actually when getting to this point the first time, I was kind of thrilled! This is actually the strongest part of this engine: to thrill you. Being able to move inside my “rendering” in real time was really a delightful moment!

Post Processing

One of the greatest features is the possibility to apply color correction and camera effects just within the editor. This can be done with a Post Process Volume for global settings. I did some tweaks on the saturation, fringing and vignette, the bloom, disabled the auto exposure by setting the min. and max. values to 1 and increased the overall brightness by setting the Exposure Bias to 1.42. I also added a lens flare, which I find really awesome happening in real time!

Setting up the Animation

The ability to move freely inside the scene makes doing animation a very easy and pleasing task because of the instant-feedback nature of the real-time environment. As a frequent user of compositing software, it took not much time for me to adapt to the integrated Matinee tool and set up an animation.

First thing to do is setting up a Matinee Actor.

When opening Matinee, you will see a window with a track section and a curve editor.

Setting up the cameras and animation work is very self-explanatory. Motion is controlled by key frames and curves just like any other animation software. Also the “cutting” work is done just within the Matinee editor.

I created a couple cameras moving slowly through the space: Seeing exactly what you are doing really helps to tweak the timing of cuts and speed of camera movement!

You can see the camera trajectories just in the editor and control the editing on the fly! After getting the rough “cut” done in Matinee, I then exported the complete animation as an AVI and fine-tuned it in Premiere and aligned it to the music.

Conclusion

The entire process starting at exporting from 3ds Max and importing into Unreal Engine 4, working out the shading and lighting to produce the animation and then posting on YouTube took me about one day. This speed is unheard of in ArchViz and reflects very much the key potential that lies in the use of Unreal Engine 4 for visualization works.

Some screenshot details from the animation

The absence of render times in terms of “producing” images really makes the process of creation very flexible and free. The fast feedback of your action is the real revolution!

We are constantly thinking and testing the possibilities of applying this kind of production and workflow into our daily work and our environment as a whole.

There are a lot of possible applications, and we are very eager to explore them!

I hope I gave some insight into my motivation and process and wish a lot of fun with the Berlin flat scene.

Kind regards,

Lasse.

This article was first published on Ronen Bekerman Architectural Visualization Blog in December 2014 and refers to software available at that time. Enjoy this article? Check out the other features in our series on “The Art of Rendering”:

Methanoia Reveals the Story Behind Architecture’s Most Striking Visualizations

When Architectural Visualization Gets It Right: Victor Enrich’s Surreal Art

7 Magical Demonstrations of Hyper-Real Environments

Alex Hogrefe Creates Stunning Architectural Visualizations Using SketchUp and Photoshop

How Technology Will Revolutionize Architectural Representations

The post How to Create Photorealistic Architectural Renderings Using Unreal Engine 4 appeared first on Journal.

from Journal https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/the-art-of-rendering-real-time-photorealism/ Originally published on ARCHITIZER RSS Feed: https://architizer.com/blog

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Cnn news Coronavirus updates: Mystery aboard US Navy ship as 13 sailors test positive again

Cnn news

A pandemic of the original coronavirus has now killed more than 317,000 of us worldwide.

Better than 4.7 million of us across the globe possess been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease precipitated by the unusual respiratory virus, per records compiled by the Heart for Techniques Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins College. The true numbers are believed to be noteworthy bigger due to making an try out shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their worldwide locations' outbreaks.

For the reason that first cases had been detected in China in December, the United States has change into the worst-affected nation, with more than 1.5 million diagnosed cases and not lower than 90,193 deaths.

Monday's excellent traits:

US loss of life toll tops 90,000

Trump threatens to reconsider US membership in WHO

4 million stimulus funds to be delivered via debit card

Cuomo encourages main sports actions groups to devise to reopen with out followers

WHO kicks off 1st digital meeting amid calls for coronavirus probe

Here's how the news developed Monday. All times Jap.

12: 42 a.m.: Trump threatens to reconsider US membership in WHO

Citing his concerns about the World Properly being Organization's lack of independence from China, President Donald Trump released a four-page letter to the WHO's director-general that says the United States can also simply resolve into consideration pulling out of the group.

The letter, posted to Twitter, accuses the WHO of consistently making deceptive claims about the COVID-19 virus and of failing to press China for a timely response to the growing pandemic. It comes a month after the president suspended U.S. contributions to the WHO, pending an investigation by his administration.

"This overview has confirmed heaps of the phenomenal concerns I raised last month and known others that the World Properly being Organization must possess addressed, seriously the World Properly being Organization's alarming lack of independence from the Of us's Republic of China," the letter said.

"If the World Properly being Organization doesn't commit to main substantive improvements internal the following 30 days, I will form my transient freeze of United States funding to the World Properly being Organization everlasting and reconsider our membership within the group," said the letter.

7: 55 p.m.: 4 million stimulus funds to be delivered via debit card

Virtually 4 million financial influence funds will likely be despatched by pay as you plod debit card, the Treasury Department presented.

Starting this week the cards will likely be mailed in explain of paper checks to of us whose most up-to-date tax return was once processed by both the Andover or Austin IRS Provider Heart, but who mustn't possess monetary institution records on file with the IRS. The cards will even be weak to form purchases, withdraw money or switch funds.

Since mid-April, the Treasury Department has to this point delivered stimulus funds totaling $239 billion to American citizens via command deposit, Explain Direct card accounts, or test.

The funds are section of a $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus reduction equipment.

5: 42 p.m.: US loss of life toll climbs past 90,000

The US loss of life toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 90,000.

In accordance to records compiled by the Heart for Techniques Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins College, 90,193 of us possess died from the virus within the U.S.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump again revised his estimate of how many American citizens will die from the coronavirus, announcing it could maybe presumably be as many as 100,000.

3: 30 p.m.: Texas' knowledgeable sports actions can resume at discontinuance of Would maybe perhaps perhaps

Texas is ready to switch into "section two" of reopening firms, Gov. Greg Abbott presented Monday.

At once, runt one care services and products can reopen.

Barber retailers, hair salons and gyms possess already been initiate, and now other private carrier firms can resume, Abbott said.

Starting Would maybe perhaps perhaps 22, Abbott said a prolonged checklist of firms can reopen or form bigger capacity, including: restaurants can initiate to a 50% capacity, while bars and bowling allies can initiate to 25% capacity.

On Would maybe perhaps perhaps 31, knowledgeable sports actions can resume, including golf, auto racing, soccer and basketball, the governor said.

Furthermore on Would maybe perhaps perhaps 31, childhood sports actions camps, day camps and overnight camps can return, he said.

Texas now has 1,512 coronavirus sufferers in hospitals -- its lowest hospitalization quantity since April 21, Abbott said.

Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC Data Are residing at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the radical coronavirus with the corpulent ABC Data crew, including the most fresh news, context and diagnosis.

3: 10 p.m.: Virginia Seashore allowed to reopen its seashores on Friday

Virginia Seashore can reopen its public seashores this Friday, Gov. Ralph Northam said on Monday.

The unusual describe will allow sunbathing, swimming and fishing.

The governor's outdated describe only allowed seashores to be weak for declare.

But there'll likely be some restrictions: no alcohol, correctly-organized gatherings or crew sports actions. Northam warned that if tips must not adopted, and if social distancing is disregarded, he'll reinstate restrictions or shut the seashores.

1: 28 p.m.: New Jersey's governor outlines the boulevard towards reopening

Whereas New Jersey is "not virtually out of the woods yet," within the last two weeks the different of sufferers in ICUs and the different of sufferers in hospitals possess each and each fallen by 36%, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday.

As of this Friday, more outdoor firms can restart in New Jersey including batting cages, golf ranges and non-public tennis clubs, Murphy said.

The governor on Monday outlined the manner to realize the "unusual usual."

He outlined safeguards for different work environments, from of us who possess frequent contact with co-employees and clients -- like bartenders and restaurant employees -- to of us who can continue to form money working from home.

Murphy also unveiled the phases for opening different firms, per risk.

The explain is currently in stage one, which contains safe entry to to parks, seashores and curbside retail.

Then will arrive expanded retail, outdoor dining, indoor dining at vastly diminished capacity, and restricted private care.

The third stage will embody expanded dining, excessive in-explain of job work, expanded private care services and products, and bars with restricted capacity.

The explain has reported more than 148,000 diagnosed cases and over 10,000 confirmed deaths.

12: 42 p.m.: Massachusetts unveils map for unhurried reopening

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday unveiled the explain's map for a unhurried reopening, with the first section starting now.

Retail can now operate with curbside pickup and locations of treasure can reopen with a 40% occupancy restrict.

Subsequent Monday, Would maybe perhaps perhaps 25 -- Memorial Day -- hair salons and barber retailers can initiate for appointment-only carrier.

Beaches could maybe presumably moreover reopen then, as correctly as parks, pressure-in theaters and a few athletic fields and courts.

Offices can reopen with a 25% most occupancy, even though working from home is peaceable strongly inspired.

In Boston, the explain of job opening is delayed till June 1.

Future phases will embody the reopening of restaurants and bars, the governor said.

12: 05 p.m.: Cuomo encourages main sports actions groups to devise to reopen with out followers

In New York explain, 106 of us lost their lives to the coronavirus on Sunday, including 23 people that died in nursing properties, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.

Holding nursing home residents and other senior electorate are a fundamental precedence for the explain, Cuomo said. Final week, New York started requiring nursing home employees to be examined twice per week, Cuomo said. The explain is sending 320,000 test kits to nursing properties.

To this point, 5 of New York's upstate areas possess reopened. Western New York is making in a position to reopen in "Part 1" on Tuesday.

Cuomo said he encourages main sports actions groups to devise to reopen with out followers, with video games peaceable broadcast on TV.

"If they'll economically possess video games without a followers ... the explain will work with them to arrive help help," Cuomo said. "Why wait till you need to well perhaps presumably have a stadium sooner than you initiate as a lot as stammer the crew help?"

11 a.m.: Air trudge on the upward thrust

After the initiate up of the pandemic despatched trudge plunging, U.S. airports are seeing an uptick in passengers.

On Sunday, agents with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened 253,807 vacationers -- one of the best different of day-to-day passengers since March 24.

On the same time last one year, TSA checkpoints across the U.S. recorded 2,620,276 vacationers.

10: 30 a.m.: NYC to release updated different of coronavirus-related illness in young of us

New York Metropolis Mayor Invoice de Blasio on Monday known as consideration to the unusual title of a COVID-19-related illness in young of us.

Now known as Multi-draw Inflammatory Syndrome in Adolescents (MIS-C), the Amenities for Disease Motivate an eye on and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed that the illness does possess a hyperlink to COVID-19, de Blasio said.

As of Monday, New York Metropolis has had 145 experiences using the preliminary definition -- Pediatric Multi-draw Inflammatory Syndrome. Of these cases, 67 examined sure for the coronavirus or antibodies, and one young particular person has died, the mayor said.

New York Metropolis officials map to possess an updated different of cases beneath the MIS-C definition later this week, the mayor said.

New York Metropolis's Department of Properly being and Psychological Hygiene is reviewing reported cases beneath the CDC's most up-to-date guidelines, the mayor said.

De Blasio said general indicators embody: persistent fever, irritability or sluggishness, belly pain, diarrhea, vomiting, rash, conjunctivitis, enlarged lymph node on one aspect of the neck, crimson cracked lips or crimson tongue, swollen hands and ft.

Of us will possess to name their physician right this moment if their runt one has indicators, the mayor said.

As precautionary measures, households will possess to continue to practice real hygiene, wear face coverings and note social distancing, the mayor said.

Total, Monday marked a "mixed" day for New York Metropolis's three monitoring growth indicators, de Blasio said.

On Would maybe perhaps perhaps 16, 48 of us had been admitted to metropolis hospitals for suspected COVID-19 -- down from 77 admissions on Would maybe perhaps perhaps 15.

On the different hand, there had been 475 sufferers in metropolis ICUs on Would maybe perhaps perhaps 16, up from 469 ICU sufferers on Would maybe perhaps perhaps 15.

The percentage of of us examined citywide who had been sure was once unchanged, staying at 11% on Would maybe perhaps perhaps 15 and Would maybe perhaps perhaps 16.

9: 36 a.m.: South African president warns pandemic highlights 'unhealthy and growing inequality'

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa warned on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic "has highlighted the harmful and growing inequality that exists between worldwide locations and internal them."

Ramaphosa made the remarks via video conference at the gap of the World Properly being Organization's 73rd World Properly being Assembly.

"Though the virus has affected each and each developed and developing worldwide locations," he said, "it's miles the sad who endure the most."

The South African president correctly-known that health care techniques of many worldwide locations "are struggling to cope."

"Some possess been weakened by underfunding and neglect," he said. "Others are beneath stress due to they had been designed to back the declare out few."

Ramaphosa, who is also the present chairman of the African Union, said that Africa affirms "its corpulent enhance" for the WHO, which he said "has been instrumental in offering guidance and enhance to African governments."

"Africa is extraordinarily weak to the ravages of this virus," he said, "and desires every imaginable enhance and aid."

What to know about coronavirus:

The intention in which it started and the manner to present protection to your self: Coronavirus outlined

What to raze whenever you happen to can also simply possess gotten indicators: Coronavirus indicators

Monitoring the unfold within the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map

9: 01 a.m.: WHO kicks off 1st digital meeting amid calls for coronavirus probe

The World Properly being Organization kicked off its first digital meeting on Monday as more than 100 of the body's 194 member worldwide locations, including the United States, now help a resolution calling for an self reliant probe into the starting place of the coronavirus pandemic.

The draft resolution will likely be presented on Monday, the first day of the 73rd World Properly being Assembly. Though the resolution doesn't particularly title China, many worldwide locations possess accused Beijing of withholding records about the radical coronavirus, which was once first detected within the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan help in December.

Speaking by video conference at the gap of the two-day gathering, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his nation would enhance a "complete overview" into the pandemic once it "has been introduced beneath control." Xi added that the investigation want to be accomplished in an "goal and fair manner." He also pledged to donate $2 billion over two years to the WHO.

"All alongside," Xi said, "we have acted with openness, transparency and accountability."

At some point of his opening remarks, WHO Director-Overall Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the arena has "been humbled by this very exiguous microbe" as he instantaneous officials to "take care of this virus with the recognize and consideration it deserves."

"Six months ago, it could maybe presumably possess been not most likely to most that the arena's excellent cities would fall," Tedros added. "But numbers don't even initiate as a lot as repeat the myth of this virus. Each loss of life leaves a scar for households, communities and worldwide locations."

8: 15 a.m.: Russia experiences unhurried declining pattern in unusual cases

Russia reported 8,926 unusual cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a unusual low in a unhurried declining pattern.

The unusual cases confirmed over the last 24 hours stammer Russia's complete to 290,678, per the nation's coronavirus response headquarters. It is miles the bottom different of unusual COVID-19 cases registered in a single day since Would maybe perhaps perhaps 1, when Russia reported 7,933 unusual infections.

Russia has the 2d-largest national tally of COVID-19 cases on this planet, within the help of the United States. The most fresh day-to-day tally is down from a story 11,656 unusual infections on Would maybe perhaps perhaps 11. Final Thursday marked the discontinuance of a 12-day trudge in which the nation registered over 10,000 unusual cases per day.

Russia also has one in all the arena's fastest charges of unusual infections within the coronavirus pandemic, 2d only to the U.S. On the different hand, the nation's loss of life toll from the disease stays comparatively low with factual 91 unusual fatalities reported over the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide complete to 2,722, per the coronavirus response headquarters.

Moscow peaceable has the bulk of the nation's infections, with 3,238 unusual cases registered within the capital over the last 24 hours. The metropolis also reported 77 unusual deaths, a story single-day extend for the reason that initiate up of the pandemic.

7: 38 a.m.: Moderna says experimental vaccine is 'most frequently safe,' creates antibodies

American biotechnology company Moderna presented Monday that its experimental vaccine for the radical coronavirus has to this point shown to be "most frequently safe and properly tolerated" within the first section of a scientific trial.

The vaccine, mRNA-1273, was once the first COVID-19 vaccine candidate to be examined on people in a scientific glide within the United States. Meantime scientific records from section one in all the test also reveals that mRNA-1273 produced the same or better antibody phases in people as convalescent plasma, a century-used technique weak for treating epidemics, per a statement from Moderna.

Earlier this month, Moderna presented that mRNA-127 had been cleared by the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration to proceed to the following section of a scientific trial. Part two of the test is "expected to initiate up rapidly," per the click release.

The Massachusetts-basically basically based company said it's miles "finalizing the protocol" for section three of the test, which is expected to initiate up in July.

7: 16 a.m.: Eire takes 1st steps out of lockdown

Eire took its first steps out of lockdown on Monday, with a exiguous range of retailers allowed to reopen and of us permitted to meet in exiguous groups.

Of us can now plod to hardware retailers, backyard facilities, farmers' markets and other outdoor retail areas within the nation, as correctly as opticians, automobile restore retailers, golf purposes and tennis courts. Constructions web pages also resumed work Monday. Other retailers remain closed, likely for not lower than yet any other three weeks. Bars and restaurants must not expected to reopen till the summer season.

Of us are instantaneous to peaceable only form journeys to retailers when it's miles necessary, and these that could maybe form money working from home must continue to raze so.

Individuals of the general public are also allowed to meet with of us outdoor their family starting Monday, but only in groups of no more than four and so they possess to remain 2 meters apart. Officers possess instantaneous caution on the first day of eased restrictions, warning that the different of COVID-19 cases can also simply upward thrust as particular person-to-particular person contact will enhance.

"We all want to manner the arriving days with care and caution, and to point to about a collective cop-on," Eire's health minister Simon Harris said Sunday night. "We need the retailers to raze initiate, so there is no want to bustle all the manner down to your native DIY center or backyard store right this moment time."

Eire recorded factual 64 unusual cases of COVID-19 on Sunday -- its lowest day-to-day extend since March 16, around the time the Irish government began imposing restrictions. In complete, the nation has more than 24,000 diagnosed cases with not lower than 1,543 deaths, per a rely kept by Johns Hopkins College.

6: 34 a.m.: Vatican reopens St. Peter's Basilica as Italy returns to relative normality

Saint Peter's Basilica threw its doorways initiate to guests on Monday for the first time since March.

Pope Francis inaugurated the corpulent reopening of the arena-famend basilica in Vatican Metropolis and held a non-public morning mass within the chapel for the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Pope John Paul II. The basilica was once then opened to the general public for masses after the pope had left.

Each Saint Peter's Square and Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican Metropolis, an self reliant enclave surrounded by Rome, had been closed to vacationers after Italy's high minister imposed a lockdown across the general nation on March 9 thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. The basilica was once cleaned and sanitized last week sooner than Monday's reopening. All guests must now wear face masks, sanitize their hands and retain not lower than a 5-foot distance from others upon entering the placement.

Catholic churches across Italy also held public masses for the first time in over two months because the nation continues to ease coronavirus-related restrictions. Within the meantime, retailers, restaurants and hair salons reopened as most firms resumed actions Monday.

Once the worst-hit nation in Europe, Italy was once the first nation on this planet to place a nationwide lockdown in explain as a result of pandemic. Better than 225,000 of us in Italy possess been diagnosed with COVID-19 and not lower than 31,908 possess died, per a rely kept by Johns Hopkins College.

Italy began to slowly decide the strict lockdown earlier this month. The nation's financial system is forecast to contract by not lower than 8% this one year as a result of epidemic.

5: 51 a.m.: France confirms 70 unusual cases in reopened faculties

On the least 70 unusual cases of COVID-19 possess been detected in reopened faculties in France as virtually 150,000 more young of us returned to classrooms on Monday, per the nation's education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer.

"Whenever, or nearly each time, these are cases which could maybe presumably be declared outdoor of college," Blanquer instantaneous French radio community RTL on Monday, including that "it's miles inevitable" for there to be some cases chanced on internal of college "but that stays the minority."

Final week, some 1.5 million traditional and main college students -- roughly one in every four -- returned to class as France gradually emerges from a nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the unfold of the radical coronavirus. Blanquer correctly-known that 70% of all students within the nation continue to resolve classes at home, not at college. The French government is allowing fogeys to retain young of us at home amid fears triggered by the virus outbreak.

The newly-detected cases in faculties arrive as health officials known a different of unusual clusters across the nation, including 34 employees who examined sure for the virus at a slaughterhouse in Fleury-les-Aubrais, a commune within the Loiret division of north-central France.

France is one in all the worst-affected worldwide locations in Europe amid the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 179,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 and not lower than 28,111 deaths, per a rely kept by Johns Hopkins College.

4: 57 a.m.: Wuhan virtually doubles different of COVID-19 assessments per day

The Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus pandemic, conducted 222,675 nucleic acid assessments on Saturday, virtually doubling from the day gone by, per the native health authority.

Final week, the Wuhan Municipal Properly being Price presented a citywide campaign to examine the general population of 11 million residents for COVID-19 to be capable of envision asymptomatic carriers of the virus, after a cluster of unusual cases emerged for the first time for the reason that metropolis had lifted its strict lockdown on April 8.

The different of assessments conducted day-to-day has elevated from 113,609 last Friday and from 72,791 last Thursday. No confirmed cases of COVID-19 with indicators had been chanced on at some stage in this making an try out duration; nevertheless, 28 unusual asymptomatic carriers had been known, per day-to-day experiences printed by the Wuhan Municipal Properly being Price.

Though advised, participation within the making an try out campaign is voluntary. Residents who had been previously examined raze not want to resolve section. It is not advised to examine young of us beneath the age of 6, per the Wuhan Municipal Properly being Price's web lisp.

3: 40 a.m.: 13 sailors test sure again after returning to virus-hit USS Theodore Roosevelt

On the least 13 U.S. Navy sailors who had been previously asymptomatic with COVID-19 possess examined sure again after returning to the united statesTheodore Roosevelt, a defense reliable instantaneous ABC Data.

Navy officials must not obvious what's occurring because the sailors had all cleared the protocols to reboard the coronavirus-afflicted ship -- finishing up a 14-day quarantine and making an try out adverse for the virus twice over the following four days. The sailors weren't working together so it seems they did not infect one yet any other aboard the ship, per the defense reliable.

It is imaginable the assessments are selecting up remnants of the radical coronavirus within the sailors. But after being asymptomatic for nearly three weeks, all 13 sailors are experiencing gentle body aches and complications. These indicators ended in assessments that showed they had been all sure for COVID-19 a 2d time, the defense reliable said.

When the first sailor described having the body aches and complications, Navy clinical groups instantaneous previously sure and asymptomatic sailors to step forward within the occasion that they had been experiencing the same indicators. Of us who said they had the indicators all examined sure for the virus again, per the defense reliable.

The thriller comes as more than 2,900 sailors possess returned to the united statesTheodore Roosevelt to space up for its eventual departure from Guam. The 97,000-ton airplane carrier was once forced to dock at the strategic naval unhealthy on the U.S. island territory on March 27 due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the roughly 5,000 crew people.

On the least 940 sailors had examined sure and had been right this moment positioned in isolation while the more than 4,000 who examined adverse had been quarantined in hotels and other facilities ashore. Some 700 sailors remained on board to deep correctly-organized the ship and bustle necessary services and products sooner than starting their isolation duration as crew individuals who had been deemed virus-free took over, per a statement in gradual April from the U.S. 7th Fast.

The Navy presented on Sunday night that the united statesTheodore Roosevelt will now initiate up a "fast cruise" pier-aspect in Guam to simulate the ship's operations at sea sooner than its departure, which seems to be to be coming near.

One more defense reliable had instantaneous ABC Data last week that one map beneath consideration is to space wing with out the corpulent crew on board while peaceable having the factual quantity for all the normal duties.

"After safely finishing up fast cruise, Theodore Roosevelt and its crew will likely be one step closer to going to sea to habits carrier qualification flights for Provider Air Cruise 11," the 7th Fast said in a statement on Sunday. "The rest of the crew will return to the ship following the air fly integration."

ABC Data' Gio Benitez, Dee Carden, Ibtissem Guenfoud, Mina Kaji, Aaron Katersky, Alina Lobzina, Luis Martinez, Arielle Mitropoulos, Phoebe Natanson, Patrick Reevell and Eric Strauss contributed to this story.

[groundbreaking-science]

1-10 - Breaking Down the Power Level

From the start of my patchy teaching career, beginning as a brother then a parent, my general ethos towards explaining the world has been to never patronise. I have developed some semblance of self-awareness over the years and so may at times simplify or reign in tangents - not everyone needs to know the minutiae to gain a broad understanding of a topic. My aim though is to never shy away from trying to provide a full answer to a question posed, no matter the age or background of the poser. An earnest and enthusiastic question deserves a considered answer with all the nuance one’s expertise can provide in the situation. I trust those listening to instead communicate where clarification would be helpful, or sift through what they need in the moment and chew over the rest later.

In contrast, there’s a trend in wider media to cling to ‘consumers’ of scientific content by ratcheting up the the sensational, the over-simplified, the drama that may or may not be manufactured for entertainment. Narratives within popular science help guide and contain the message within (no one wants to be subjected to a list of facts, even regarding ki) but often the science is so watered down the only substance of the piece is the fluff. Those with a genuine palate for science (or history, or literature, or…) are left underwhelmed on repeated readings and sometimes even mistrusting of the expertise involved.

It is for those reasons I decided to include this section as a hat tip to the insatiably curious, though for those among you with little appetite for a smattering of mathematics, I first bring you a tangential, and completely true, offering in the form of a fish.

I have spoken frequently of a model for ki. By that I mean a story that explains the effects of ki we see using fundamental quantities. The story links cause and effect in the form of equations, transforming the qualitative to the quantitative.

The model presented here is not perfect. All models are an approximation to the truth and there are many simplifications (particularly in this version and I will highlight where), but broadly the model performs well and the limitations of the model are well defined. I trust you to take away what is most useful to you now, and I hope this treatment gives potential undergraduates a taster for some of the more theoretical aspects of a course on ki-use I hope will materialise in the near-future.

When in battle one question sits on the tip of everyone’s tongue: “What is the enemy’s power level?” This is proxy phrase to ask many questions at once. What is the opponent’s potential? How many people will be required to tackle them? How much strength should I use straight out of the gate? What is the risk to the local environment, the nearby populace, the planet? The highest power level will not always win a fight. Power level differences of an order of magnitude, even sometimes two, can be overcome with teamwork and sound strategy. Getting an early indication of the opponent’s location and power can give your team vital time to plan and distribute yourselves effectively.

As we discussed in a previous section, the idea of a power-level measuring device - the scouter - was first introduced to us by Freeza’s personal army and deconstructed by Bulma.

The original scouters performed perfectly well in the situation they were designed for, searching for clusters of life-forms with power levels of 0-2 (encompassing the vast majority of people in the Universe) to allow the possessors to commit mass murder extremely efficiently. The scouters were able to stretch beyond this range, reaching higher power levels of 5.3; any higher and the harmonic oscillator arrays constructed to respond to the vibrations in the ki field (with technology developed along a similar branch to Dr Gero’s) would break. Specifically: the atomic ‘pendulums’ of varied masses contained within ion traps would be kicked out of the holding magnetic fields and flung away into the rest of the structure, shorting the electronics and usually exploding the device. The designers believed the likelihood of any of Freeza’s forces  encountering someone that strong so low they didn’t deem it necessary to prioritise the scouter-wearer’s safety. Clearly Freeza’s true strength, peaking above a power level of eight at that time, was hidden from the vast majority of his forces.

The fully artificial scouters were not flexible enough to cope with everything life could throw at it. Life itself on the other hand has an amazing capacity to give as good as it gets. I can sense everything from tiny fogs of ki in less-than-clean water to the brightest kis in the Universe standing almost blindingly close, and I can do it all without shorting my own circuitry. Whilst the mechanical scouters have a range of 0 to 5.3, the newer versions developed on Earth can cope with -1 to 14, (or 0.1 to 100,000,000,000,000 unlogged). That is tested. Hypothetically they should remain accurate up to a power level of 17 but we never want to be in situation where we’re reading that. Our method’s downside is the loss of precision compared to the original scouter, which was able to differentiate just as well between power levels of 1 and 2 and 10,000 and 10,001. Our scouters do maintain a 0.1% precision however, which is usually sufficient. Anyone wanting finer precision to monitor and argue their progress needs another hobby.

Capsule Corp employees have for the most part stayed away from playing with the biophysics of life, knowing the trouble and potential backfire meddling can cause through the work of Dr Gero. What little research and development that has been done in this field has been led by Bulma and Mai through all above-board personal funding. The new scouters are a result of this off-piste research and utilise a genetic modification of bioluminescent bacteria found in a tropical fish.

The fish in question - the blue-finned angelfish - exclusively inhabits the coral reefs around one of the many South Sea archipelagos. They’re crepuscular feeders, making use of the changing light levels at dawn and dusk that other fish and invertebrates struggle to cope with. When hunting for prey like small fish and krill they spread into what can appear to be a dangerously loose shoal. What makes this strategy effective is the beautiful symbiotic relationship the fish has with a bacteria within the fish’s transparent skin along the fins and tail. The bacteria glows neon yellow using bioluminescence near low power levels (-2 to -1.5) and flickers in a predictable pattern with the ki signature, the wave of flickering allowing for the triangulation of distance. When the glow starts, the fish play a game of hot and cold until close enough to pinpoint their prey through smell. The now brighter glow brings the rest of the shoal to feed into the early night.

Why then are are these fish known as the blue-finned and not yellow-finned angelfish? Well, they are named as yellow locally, though zoologists from the mainland way-back-when never much listened to local expertise, routinely removing chosen specimens from their natural environment to study in the comfort of the lab. As the scientists approached the fish in the tank back home their fins glowed a bright blue and the fish reacted poorly, racing to escape. It transpires the bacteria can luminesce over two colours, yellow for prey and blue for predators - the latter covering intensities of 0.3-2. This range catches the bigger fish and reef sharks that home in on the yellow glow of a feeding shoal. When a wave of blue creeps across the shoal in the near-dark, the fish know to hide. It just so happens this range encompasses the scientists’ own power levels, too. To the scientists with clipboards then, these were only ever blue-finned glowing fish.

The locals know of the fish’s defence intimately and is a source of great amusement. There’s a shallow, natural harbour in one of the smaller islands that, very rarely, a large shoal of angelfish will chase prey into. The harbour is sealed and all the boats dragged onto the shore. A call is then sent to the other islands for an impromptu night-long festival - a spontaneous get-together and chance to catch-up. Traditionally, the arrival of the fish had been seen as a mixed omen, that bad luck is ongoing or shortly arriving. Assembling a group to challenge the fish twice-touched by a creator god (once for each colour) however will guide the selection of the warrior or leader to pull the islands through a time of strife.

The challenge is as follows. Representatives from each attending island volunteer to take on the fish. Their true reasons for participating are varied: trained warriors, children nearing adulthood, people looking to impress an onlooker they’re sweet on, older fishermen showing off their talent, the local clown putting on a show. Each representative is then painted over the course of the afternoon by friends and family with a glowing set of pigments (not made from the fish fins, I hasten to add). Some designs are beautifully intricate; most are messy, child-sized handprints. Everyone then waits for twilight with great anticipation.

The participants take their turn to wade in and try to catch a fish in the harbour with only a net - the great difficulty being of course that the fish will glow blue and alert the shoal to avoid the intruder. This leaves an ever-moving empty ring of water around the participant to flounder in, struggling to cast the net and maybe just reaching the shoal edge. The larger their genki, the wider that ring and the greater the challenge. The winner is decided by elected older folk, and is usually a combination of how fast a fish was caught and how much paint was left on the challenger’s body. About half of participants catch and release a fish, nearly everyone trips, and the spectators have a great time.

Nowadays the omens and winners are not taken seriously beyond passing on fantastical stories, spooking the children or for gaining bragging rights. Usually.

The year before the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament, a shoal made their way into the harbour. The residents of one of many islands answered the call, the group including the young Papayaman and his family. Their island hadn’t been doing so well in recent years; the Moon’s twice vanishing and reappearing act dampened the tides for a time and their delicate yellow mangrove trees took a hit. The entire food chain around the islands and reef was disrupted and the trees would take decades to recover. As the slow-growing tree bark is prized for its tannin, the island’s economy took a brutal hit, too. The residents, previously relatively comfortable, had eaten into their savings and were near the brink. Going to the festival was supposed to be a rare fun day out. As the eldest sibling at nine years old, the boy who would become Papayaman had already resolved to compete in the hope he would be worthy enough to help his family.

The evening went smoothly until the boy took the long walk down towards the water. As he hit the shoreline the fish retreated, that blue ring growing to taunt him, he believed. When in the water the scale of the challenge stretched before him. There was no way he would be able to throw the net that far out, let alone hold onto it to drag a fish back. He became more and more frustrated as his time and paint dwindled and his anger, something he rarely felt, rose… then burst. For a moment the entire bay was full of blue stars, lighting up the dusk. Then the fish bolted, some even jumping onto the shore in a frantic escape attempt, causing pandemonium amongst the younger children.

The boy did not catch a fish himself in the end. But there was no doubt about his potential throughout the archipelago, and he was brought into warrior training as soon as he returned home. He was then selected to attend the tournament on nearby Papaya Island to earn money for his village. Although he didn’t win, due to his efforts and subsequent training the island eventually did recover.

A number of years later the shoal returned and the now young man eventually found a way to catch that fish, finally marking (from his own perspective at least) his graduation from training with my father. And as they say, the rest is history.

My first encounter with the fish was a little more begrudging. I had just “moved” to East City for a postdoctoral position into a cosy office with two others funded on the same grant. We got on well and I was hoping for a relatively relaxing couple of years. That was thrown out the window within the first month when the zebrafish aficionados in the labs two floors below decided to branch out, nabbing a number of blue-finned angelfish to get to grips with the bioluminescence. They’d hypothesised the glowing bacteria were responding to the fish’s excitement and stress levels (apologies for not correcting you sooner) and were planning on running behavioural studies.

Those fish hated me. Even at that distance, my natural aura was just the right strength to set them off. No one could figured out why the fish were constantly stressed during lab hours, until of course the news reached our office and I put two and two together. My chronically guilty self had the most fun five months suppressing my genki at work until the lab moved from data collection to analysis and the fish returned home. Still, I’m grateful I got to peruse the results from the bacterial DNA sequencing. I relayed the gist to Bulma and she was able to isolate, then modify, the particular colour and ki range the bacteria glowed at. I’ve contacted the old lab members for co-authorship on this new work. I hope they’re not too mad.

The new scouters use these modified bacteria to read power levels and ki signatures. Stacked into mini vials filled with agar, the bacteria respond to ki much like cone cells in the eye respond to light wavelengths. The spectrum of light emitted by the bacteria indicate the intensity of ki hitting the scouter, and the specific pulsing is monitored and decomposed to identify ki signatures - much like instruments can be isolated from a song. With at least two detector packs and accelerometers to track the movement of the wearer, ki signatures can be triangulated and located. A simple pair of glasses (less conspicuous than the original scouters) can be used display results - one lens for a simple overlay or both for a full 3D effect. The isolation isn’t fantastic at a distance as the baseline separation between the detectors isn’t that great, but in relatively close quarters they work perfectly. Better yet are the systems Mai built into the jet flier and jeep windshield that give a heads-up display of the scene for both the driver and passenger. Due to “popular” demand there is a smartphone app, though sadly the hardware is not included.

All in all we’re pretty well-equipped to quantify overall power level. The measure was rendered completely useless by Earth’s martial artists, however. As soon as Freeza’s army found we could suppress our ki and therefore their scouters were unable to accurately predict any form of maximal potential, the tech was discarded. With the new scouters, getting beyond that one measure to find all the components - genki boosts, yuuki, shouki, the base power, flow suppressions, effort - is entirely possible and we can fully model a person’s ki-use and potential. The equations for the model (omitting the calculus) are as follows. 

The overall power P (without being logged) can be defined as the total energy E_T divided by the time interval t, or

We know the total energy can be expressed as

Or, as the sum of energy derived from the field (E_F) and what is remaining of genki energy E_G,rem. This can be substituted into the first equation to form

Genki energy E_G is divided into two parts: the genki that is amplified (E_G,amp) and the remaining genki (E_G,rem), so the above is expanded to

From section 1-9 we know E_G,amp can be expressed with the fraction of genki chosen to be converted from genki to field, f_GF. Substituting for E_G,rem we get

Recall also from that section E_F is a function of E_G,amp, the converted fraction fGF and the efficiency of amplification from genki to field, a_GF,

Substituting through we get

And then simplified down:

Let’s take stock here. We’ve been able to break down the power level into a number of base stats - the amplification, the fraction converted and genki energy. As a sanity check here, if the amplification of genki (a_GF) is less than 1 this will lead to that central bracket becoming negative and the entire combined power level less than if it were from genki alone. This correctly mimics the disappointing early stages of learning to amplify genki, where you get less out than you put in. You will need to persevere!

We can further break down the genki energy into the flow rate of particles from the centre Q and the average charge per particle, q.

We use the average charge rather than an exact value due to the slight variation genki charge can possess, the variation of which is mirrored in the colour spectrum of the aura. In extreme cases (like the kaioken with a double peak in section 1-8) the two averages can be noted and incorporated in a full treatment. The assumption of only one smooth peak and therefore one mean is usually made.

From section 1-8 we also know that the flow Q is the flux Phi_p multiplied by the surface area A. This is simplified. The flux measured can be directionally dependent if the ki-user is focusing down an attack for example. For the most part though, the aura is isotropic (the same in all directions). In reality the calculation should be a closed integral over the centre surface, modelled as a sphere.This then all ties together as

and substituting in

The power level is not a static value. The surface area A can change with transformation or suppression, as can the average charge q. Both of these quantities are defined with dynamic variables. Remember from section 1-9 that yuuki (y, courage) can affect these manipulations of surface area and charge,

And

where A is the surface area at rest, q the average charge at rest, and f refers to the resultant fractional change the ki-user is affecting. e is the effort assigned to perform these changes. Theta refers to all the parameters needed to define the function translating effort and yuuki into that fractional change. From section 1-8 we know most ki-users step up in genki using those harmonically defined troughs of required effort and sit at one level rather than hovering in tricky spots. Yuuki modifies these curves by raising them, meaning the ki-user requires more effort to reach the same desired fractional change. Some levels even become ‘locked out’ entirely. These functions take the same wavey and upwards shape for everyone, though the actual width, height and ramp up of effort required will change between ki-users. Whilst these functions are complicated, a good approximation can be made with a relatively small number of parameters. Explicitly defining those functions is beyond the scope of this book, but suffice to say the parameters for those functions can be thought of as base stats, too.

Similar to yuuki, shouki (s,strength of will) feeds into the efficiency of conversion between genki and field energy in a similar fashion -

Where a_GF,0 is ones go-to conversion rate. Whereas yuuki affected the ki-users ability to change from natural outputs, in this case we do not perform any amplification naturally (though we have a habitual value) so shouki affects the ki-user’s ability to amplify genki at all - if shouki is 0, no amount of assigned effort will amplify genki.

There is an additional constraint on these values. One of course only has a limited amount of effort to give. Some must go into general thought and movement, so we can surmise

Knowing some manipulations of flow, charge and amplification would be downright impossible, this one inequality can help constrain the rest of the parameters considerably.

In full then, one rearranged form of the equation for a ki-user’s power level (omitting some nuances for legibility) is

Putting this all together, we have a number of default ‘base stats’ - A_0, q_0, a_GF,0 and Phi_p (along with the effort to flow rate, effort to genki charge and effort to amplification functions defined with θs) and the dynamic stats y, s, e_A, e_(A_GF)  and e_q. From these there are a number of derived stats like f_GF, f_q, f_(a_GF), Q, q and the most useful split of power level, E_G and E_F .

Given some loose assumptions and probabilities assigned to each of these variables - so-called priors that were discussed in section 1-3 - one can monitor a changing power level and narrow down these assumptions using increasing evidence as time passes to give parameter estimates.

What kind of priors? We know some states of particle flow and genki charge are difficult to reach due to the harmonics inherent in the process, and so ki-users are going to avoid particular power levels due to the increase in effort required to hold them. We can assume ki-users will default to a habitual level of genki amplification. Flow rate will never increase above base without particular techniques like transformation. Charge never drops below the default level unless the flow rate is unnaturally high or the ki-user is exhausted. All of these assumptions can be programmed into the model as prior assumptions.

One must be careful with priors to never attribute zero probability to a possibility otherwise that one-in-a-million chance will never appear in the probable results in the updating model. I could assume that no one with a Earthling appearance could have a power-level above 2, for example. If I turn these assumption on my Uncle Krillin the model will give the best answer it can, maybe trying to say that he has a very efficient genki to field conversion rate to compensate for the lack of flexibility in the model. Instead, by allowing some very small, highly unlikely chance for an Earthling to have such a high natural power level, the updated prior will be pulled to this region with every new data point, showing the unlikely to be more and more possible.

When encountering odd enemies one may ‘widen the priors’ to encompass highly unlikely scenarios like godly-powered Earthlings. ‘Flattening the priors’ means allowing all possible scenarios. Whilst that sounds like the best idea, flattening leads to a large number of possible solutions when you know some combination of base stats are more likely to occur than others. Choosing priors for any kind of succession analysis is an art form in itself.

There can be a lot of information and possibilities to process when building up a picture of a ki-user, but with a careful set of tasks to perform in a calm environment, someone’s base stats at least can be obtained and updated on a semi-regular basis. This narrows down the parameter space before entering battle considerably, reducing the uncertainty when finding the dynamic variables. Some tasks include running up and down ki output from fully suppressed to maximum, or how quickly one can amplify a set amount of genki. For new enemies the scouter has to work overtime, but with every second of new information our intel improves considerably. Even if all the enemies’ parameters haven’t been constrained, the more varied their attacks and strategy the faster we can build up a picture to start answering key questions such as whether the enemy is holding back their strength.

For our team, Mai is able to feed us updates about each other’s status, allowing us to adjust the plan should someone be running low and too proud to admit it, or the enemy be surprisingly resilient. For all the rudimentary single word or single image telepathy usually thrown around the field,hearing an articulate voice in your ear confirming that you’re tired  or Auntie Bulma yelling to calm down should the panic be setting in can be very disconcerting. I refer to ‘us’; I’m never very careful with the tiny earpiece and I blow it within minutes. As much as the data intrigues me I’m far too used to running from my own observations. I’m not the only one to have been on the sharp end of a scolding, the earpieces are notoriously difficult to keep intact. Pan has the longest survival time of forty-five minutes and even that’s contested as for the first half an hour she was deliberately suppressing as a feint.

The scouters are useful in the moment and for review, but their most interesting day-to-day function is how the software can track improvement. This of course leads to competition. Endless competition. From conversations I’ve overheard, the moment one of the kids feels they’ve improved the scouters are out. There are often disputes because someone is 'using the scouter wrong’ and Mai is dragged in to adjudicate or fix what turns out to be perfectly functional hardware… Bulma put her foot down very quickly on getting drawn into these arguments. Even the old guard cannot contain their curiosity and will play with them at parties for old times’ sake.

Realistically though, the live-feed technology is more a gimmick for us. We know each other well enough and are sadly so experienced that our gut reactions, whilst not quantifiable, are usually correct. In actuality, the technology as a whole continues to be developed for future use. It would be well-suited for personal status trackers across a large group to be fed back to a control hub, or to help tailor training for new ki-users to maximise their efforts.

“New ki-users”. For those who haven’t flicked to later chapters that phrase must be torture to read right now. I understand. This section now closes the ‘brief’ chapter on the theoretical framework behind ki and we will now move onto the practical elements. You can breathe. Speaking of, if you have been working on those centring exercises I’d hope you’d have found your centre by now, have fantastic posture and felt the first hints of the natural flow of genki with your breath. This is preparation that will, in the coming chapter, pay dividends.

Ah. During this chapter I did promise you a particular story. I hadn’t forgotten, nor have I left it deliberately late to tease. I wanted to put myself, friends and family in a wider context before tackling it lest there is any misunderstanding after. I also wanted to put the story front and centre in the textbook chapter I believe will be the most read because of the tale’s significance - not just to world history or tangentially to ki but to me.  

The story’s about the Cell Games, and how I came to be that little boy on the hill.

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