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  1. <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:blogger='http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857564007068251657</id><updated>2024-03-12T15:55:48.985-07:00</updated><title type='text'>sentenceeee</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>controlling</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11905223875670470178</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>3</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857564007068251657.post-73702506096449379</id><published>2022-02-19T05:08:00.004-08:00</published><updated>2022-02-19T05:08:18.696-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Pamper Your Pet With Designer Pet Products</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp; Pampering your dog never feels better without giving them plus-designer products. A fashionable designer product can be given to your dog as birthday product, as a Christmas gift, as a new year present or just because you felt like it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are many designer products available for your pet, and you could choose them from various categories depending on your need.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Designer Products and Their Uses&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At present, a pet parent can find designer pet products for all categories for their pet. Here is a list some things that you can pick out for your pet:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leashes&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leashes are one of the most important products for any pet owner&#39;s use. A leash keeps your pet safe when they are taken out for a walk. Furthermore, the leash keeps the pet safe from running too far away and from injuries.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thecityloo.com/&quot;&gt;thecityloo.com/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;A pet owner can buy designer jeweled leashes, or classy looking retractable leash or a fancy crystal beaded leash for their pet dog.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Toys&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gone are the days when you could only find plastic toys for your dog. Toys keep your pets active, busy and save your household items from being destroyed by your pet army! One can buy designer plush toys, squeaky toys or soft toys for larger dogs. Along with this, the option of buying glowing pet toys is also open for pet owners, which glow up when pressed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Collars&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you plan on pampering your pet dog with designer pet products, then collars will be the absolutely correct choice. Collars add beauty to the pet&#39;s personality and luxurious collars such as jeweled collars, shiny designer collars and festive season themed collars are a big hit with pets as well as pet owners!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Grooming and Beauty&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It won&#39;t be fair for your pet if only you get to use the fancy products for your beauty and they don&#39;t. Thankfully, in today&#39;s time, there are many options for luxurious and high-end beauty products for your pets. From shampoos to eye pads and from automatic combs to breath fresheners, dogs have it all!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Clothing&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Worried about your pet looking too plain during a party? Well, do not fret anymore. There are various brands, stores, and websites which produce and offer custom made dresses and costumes for your pet. You could choose one for a specific theme or dress them up as per their genders with hats, vests, and suits. The choice is yours.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Additional Accessories&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pampering your pet will be incomplete if you do not own other objects such as carriers, plush beds, designer apparel, designer food bowls and fancy treats for your dog. With the growing love for pets, you will never run out of high-end options for your dog&#39;s requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A happy and a healthy pet is a dream come true for all pet owners. Furthermore, the pet owners find it highly satisfying to pamper their pets. Pamper your pets with anything and everything, you will never run out of options to choose from.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Are Natural Pet Products Really Better For Pets?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Natural pet products have started flooding the market. After the poisoned pet food incident a few years ago consumers started to really look at where their pets bedding, food, toys and other products were made and what was in them.&amp;nbsp; Natural and organic products became widely available for the first time.&amp;nbsp; Are natural products really better for your pet?&amp;nbsp; Yes, they are. Here&#39;s why:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Natural&amp;nbsp; products don&#39;t contain common allergens- Many pets are allergic to commonly used ingredients in pet food like wheat and wheat gluten, corn, and some types of rice.&amp;nbsp; Mass produced pet foods use the lowest possible grade of feed grain in their foods to keep costs down.&amp;nbsp; Natural foods usually contain organic brow rice or soy instead of cheap filler grains that cause skin conditions in millions of pets.&amp;nbsp; Whole grains are better for you, and better for your pets.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Natural pet foods use organic meat sources - Feeding your pets food made from chickens and cows that are fed growth hormones, antibiotics, and even pieces of other chickens and cows isn&#39;t healthy.&amp;nbsp; Natural pet foods use meat from only certified organic sources like free range chickens, hormone free beef, and fish.&amp;nbsp; Many natural pet foods also use alternative meat sources like venison or duck for pets that have developed allergies to commercial grade chicken and beef because of the hormones and other drugs that they are fed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The creation of natural pet products can be documented - When you buy cheap, imported pet products brought in from other countries there is no way to verify where the product was made or what it contains. As the pet food poisoning scandal proved the only way to know for sure what is in your pet&#39;s products is to know the entire history of the product.&amp;nbsp; Often natural pet items are handmade or made in small batches. The materials are documented to be safe for pets so you can be sure your pet is not going to get sick from the materials used to make the product.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;3 Amazing Pet Products That Make Pet Ownership Easy&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Every pet owner wants to get the best things for his furry pal. But are there any best hacks that can take your pet ownership skills to the next level? With a wide array of pet products available in the market from apparels to grooming supplies, sanitation, feeding supplies, cleaning, pet techs and gadgets it sometimes becomes a difficult ask to select the best ones for your furry pal. With the advancement of technology, it has now become possible to make pet ownership easy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Let us look at some of the products that will assist you in achieving this feat:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Automatic Feeders &amp;amp; Waterers&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This product has been developed for the convenience of pet owners. Now you do not have to worry about feeding or watering your pet until and unless the stock is over in the storage area. There are a variety of DIY automatic feeders and waterers available in the market that can make your life easier. Normal bowls are now a thing of the past. Pet feeders and waterers that need you to only fill up the storage is a total fad. Now you do not have to put any reminders to feed your furry companion or water them. This will now be done by an automatic feeder. But to be safe, always keep a watch on the automatic waterers and feeders just in case a sneaky pal who might break into the storage bin. The automatic feeder aids your pet to eat at scheduled timings and prevent overeating. You can set the timer on a program timer present in the feeder or waterer. There are certain feeders that work by gravity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pet Monitor&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pet monitors are similar to baby monitors. With the aid of this instrument, it is possible to speak, interact, view and listen to the pets from anywhere. The monitor contains inbuilt speakers and microphones that aids in communication from both sides. This can all be controlled through a smart-phone. It can rotate 340 degrees with up and down video motions. This feature makes it easier for you to place it at heights as well. It is also possible for you to capture pictures and videos from the mobile device paired with the monitor. The great thing about this device is that it is now possible for multiple users to connect to the pet monitor. They come in different colours too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pet Flap Doors&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tired of opening the door repeatedly for your pooch? If yes; there is a solution for it. Thanks to pet flap doors it is now possible to stop moving even an itch. The great thing about these doors is that they can be installed to the existing doors. These doors are available in plastic, wood or any other material as preferred to you. They are generally made up of vinyl and certain flaps consist of a magnetic bar at the end that aids in secure closing of the pet door. These doors come in different sizes depending on how big is your pet. These doors make it easier for your pet to go to the balcony or garden area to conduct their business. The other great thing about this door is that you do not need to get back to the pet during your work timings to open the door for your pal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/feeds/73702506096449379/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/2022/02/pamper-your-pet-with-designer-pet.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default/73702506096449379'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default/73702506096449379'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/2022/02/pamper-your-pet-with-designer-pet.html' title='Pamper Your Pet With Designer Pet Products'/><author><name>controlling</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11905223875670470178</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857564007068251657.post-393517837841734395</id><published>2022-02-19T05:08:00.002-08:00</published><updated>2022-02-19T05:08:06.829-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Don&#39;t Be a Bore - These &quot;Sins&quot; Will Ruin Your Stories!</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp; At one time in the world&#39;s history story telling was integral to the survival of our earliest records. Before the proliferation of the written word, great story tellers and bards were responsible for documenting history with all its great accomplishments and stunning defeats. The times, they are a-changing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any major event these days is usually caught on film. The average person can afford to document their family history with inexpensive equipment.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gbcstories.com/&quot;&gt;https://gbcstories.com/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;Online blogs have become the premiere story telling vehicles. Facebook and twitter statuses, now document everything from the completely inane, to major political events. In all of this &quot;new&quot; media, have people begun to lose their knack for story telling?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are few things worse than being stuck listening to a story from someone who can&#39;t tell it. It is an exercise in complete frustration. People need to get better! Avoiding a couple of common story telling mistakes can change you from a complete bore, into the life of the party.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To me, the three story telling sins are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. Telling them too slowly: This is horrible. The worst part is once you are invested in listening to these people you know it is going to be a long story because they are telling it so slowly. Their voice is monotone and they drag out each thought until you are ready to choke them. If you are telling a story - get to the point as quickly as possible while retaining all pertinent info. At least pretend like your story is important and animate your speech a bit. A little enthusiasm won&#39;t kill you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. Tangents: This is the worst. This will kill a story with a quickness. If you are telling a story about some intense showdown you had with a mugger...stick to that. A tangent about how you went out for ice cream, and they totally don&#39;t have that one ice cream you love, which is weird because it is like ALWAYS there! Did I mention the cashier looked just like Webster? It was uncanny, I was totally waiting for Mr. Kostoplous...Oh my god! What&#39;s his name again? What? Yeah thats it! OMG I can&#39;t believe I forgot that...OK where was I? At this point I don&#39;t know anymore and I certainly don&#39;t care. I am silently praying to all that is holy, you forget yourself and this farce comes to an end now. I might even jump in with my own Webster story because the thought of hearing your inane babble any longer makes me sick to my stomach. In conclusion...tangents are bad!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. The Bad Story Warning: If anyone ever starts their story out with these words: &quot;OK I suck at telling stories...&quot; then RUN. The fact is, if someone is saying that it is because their stories are bad. People have let them know by either telling them or walking out of a room. At one time in my life, I genuinely thought that I would punch someone square in the nose as soon as they said that. I think any legal ramifications I incurred would have been off set by the time saved not listening to them prattle on. I never acted on it but I thought about it. Don&#39;t set your self up for failure. Be confident!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am not claiming to be a great story teller. I am not claiming that at all. I am however, a fan of a great story. I can say with 100% confidence that no story I have ever heard that was told too slowly, went off in tangents or was prefaced ay a bad story warning has been great. They haven&#39;t even been good. In fact any story that matches all three of those criteria have been some of the worst moments in my history of social interaction. If you suck at telling stories, and if you do you know it, your first step should be to eliminate the above &quot;sins&quot;. Try it for your next story and let me know how it works out for you. Just get to the point when you do!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Alternate History - What If&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Alternate history is about what would have if the events of the past had turned out completely differently. For instance, what if the Germans had won World War II; what if Bill Clinton had been impeached during his hearing; what if the Confederates had won the American Civil War; or what if the British had won the Falkland War.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we take alternate history, it assumes that things go the way as the actual history until a certain point, which is known as point of divergence. When this point is reached, the outcome of that particular event changes. In alternate history scenario, even small changes can have a profound effect because of the butterfly effect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are many alternate history stories floating around but most of them concentrate on politics of the past. Here alternate history tries to reconstruct what would have happened if the world leaders of past had made different decisions or what would have happened if different events had happened because of chance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Alternate history should not be taken lightly. Many experts say that considering different scenarios, historians can actually help explain history as it really is.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many authors have taken help from alternate history and used it to write novels and short stories. Here, the authors have used alternate history as a means of entertaining their readers. However, when one reads stories entailing What if... and the plot deals with real historical story but with a different outcome, the stories gives us a new perspective to think about.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some times, reading alternate history makes us grateful for what we have. Imagine if the Confederates had won the American Civil War, slavery would have still been rampant and we would not have been living in a free world. Or, if Hitler had managed to win World War II, the most unspeakable atrocities would have been taking place in Europe and rest of the world even today.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Putting &quot;Great&quot; Into Your Next Story&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What do all children love from the time they understand what their parents are saying? It&#39;s a love that will never tire for the rest of their lives. And it&#39;s true for most or all of the earth&#39;s population.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A good story! Everyone loves a good story. Just look and listen all around you...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We have 24 hours of story-telling on TV. Movies, syndicated shows from yesteryear, current shows, sitcoms, dramas, and news. Aside from hard facts, stories abound in the news. Books and magazines. Audio books that we listen to while driving!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a proverbial &#39;Uncle Joe&#39; who tells great stories? I bet everyone knows at least one person who&#39;s a great storyteller. And notice the informal distinction we give these people. &#39;So and so&#39; is a great storyteller! It&#39;s an accolade, an informal honor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before written, recorded history there was oral history. Stories told by the elders. One of the greatest books written over 2000 years ago is full of parables. Stories with an important message.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A good story has impact!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Imagine people&#39;s reactions if they were simply told to &#39;do good.&#39; Those two words would be forgotten in five minutes. But their hearts, minds, and imaginations are captured with a story about &#39;doing good.&#39;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Everyone loves a good story. And perhaps there isn&#39;t a better teacher of story on the planet than Robert McKee. He&#39;s universally regarded as the world&#39;s premier teacher of screenwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here&#39;s a little story for you...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In his book &#39;Story,&#39; Robert McKee tells of his early days in Hollywood working as a reader. He analyzed screenplay submissions and gave his &#39;yes or no&#39; recommendation. He anecdotally tells of his experiences as a reader.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the first several hundred scripts, he felt he could produce an all-purpose script analysis. Here&#39;s what he had to say about his reading experience. It provides great insight into what NOT to do when crafting your next story.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot; Nice description, actable dialogue...all in all, a script of well-chosen words. The story, however, sucks. The first thirty pages crawl on a fat belly of exposition; the rest never get to their feet. The main plot, what there is of it, is riddled with convenient coincidence and weak motivation. No discernible protagonist. Unrelated tensions that could shape into subplots never do. Characters are never revealed to be more than they seem. Not a moment&#39;s insight into the inner lives of these people or their society. It&#39;s a lifeless collection of predictable, ill-told, and clichéd episodes that wander off into a pointless haze. PASS ON IT.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pretty brutal, isn&#39;t it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But don&#39;t feel you need great literary talent to be a great storyteller. Surprisingly, or maybe not, frequently one has nothing to do with the other. And according to Mr. McKee, being able to tell a good story will usually win the day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But...he&#39;s quick to point out all of that isn&#39;t enough to create a good story.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His personal lament concerns craft. In particular, how few seem to possess this craft. A good story is useless unless it&#39;s &quot;well told.&quot; And learning to tell a good story well is craft. Learning and mastering the principles of story composition will elevate your good story into a great story.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/feeds/393517837841734395/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/2022/02/dont-be-bore-these-sins-will-ruin-your.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default/393517837841734395'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default/393517837841734395'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/2022/02/dont-be-bore-these-sins-will-ruin-your.html' title='Don&#39;t Be a Bore - These &quot;Sins&quot; Will Ruin Your Stories!'/><author><name>controlling</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11905223875670470178</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857564007068251657.post-6683391814514532963</id><published>2022-02-19T05:07:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2022-02-19T05:07:57.287-08:00</updated><title type='text'>What Is a Game?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp; We probably all have a pretty good intuitive notion of what a game is. The general term &quot;game&quot; encompasses board games like chess and Monopoly, card games like poker and blackjack, casino games like roulette and slot machines, military war games, computer games, various kinds of play among children, and the list goes on. In academia we sometimes speak of game theory, in which multiple agents select strategies and tactics in order to maximize their gains within the framework of a well-defined set of game rules.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;https://totoscan.com/&quot;&gt;https://totoscan.com/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp; When used in the context of console or computer-based entertainment, the word &quot;game&quot; usually conjures images of a three-dimensional virtual world featuring a humanoid, animal or vehicle as the main character under player control.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ttattack.com/&quot;&gt;https://ttattack.com/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;(Or for the old geezers among us, perhaps it brings to mind images of two-dimensional classics like Pong, Pac-Man, or Donkey Kong.) In his excellent book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Raph Koster defines a game to be an interactive experience that provides the player with an increasingly challenging sequence of patterns which he or she learns and eventually masters. Koster&#39;s asser-tion is that the activities of learning and mastering are at the heart of what we call &quot;fun,&quot; just as a joke becomes funny at the moment we &quot;get it&quot; by recognizing the pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Video Games as Soft Real-Time Simulations&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most two- and three-dimensional video games are examples of what computer scientists would call soft real-time interactive agent-based computer simulations. Let&#39;s break this phrase down in order to better understand what it means. In most video games, some subset of the real world -or an imaginary world- is modeled mathematically so that it can be manipulated by a computer. The model is an approximation to and a simplification of reality (even if it&#39;s an imaginary reality), because it is clearly impractical to include every detail down to the level of atoms or quarks. Hence, the mathematical model is a simulation of the real or imagined game world. Approximation and simplification are two of the game developer&#39;s most powerful tools. When used skillfully, even a greatly simplified model can sometimes be almost indistinguishable from reality and a lot more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;An agent-based simulation is one in which a number of distinct entities known as &quot;agents&quot; interact. This fits the description of most three-dimensional computer games very well, where the agents are vehicles, characters, fireballs, power dots and so on. Given the agent-based nature of most games, it should come as no surprise that most games nowadays are implemented in an object-oriented, or at least loosely object-based, programming language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;All interactive video games are temporal simulations, meaning that the vir- tual game world model is dynamic-the state of the game world changes over time as the game&#39;s events and story unfold. A video game must also respond to unpredictable inputs from its human player(s)-thus interactive temporal simulations. Finally, most video games present their stories and respond to player input in real time, making them interactive real-time simulations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One notable exception is in the category of turn-based games like computerized chess or non-real-time strategy games. But even these types of games usually provide the user with some form of real-time graphical user interface.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What Is a Game Engine?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;game engine&quot; arose in the mid-1990s in reference to first-person shooter (FPS) games like the insanely popular Doom by id Software. Doom was architected with a reasonably well-defined separation between its core software components (such as the three-dimensional graphics rendering system, the collision detection system or the audio system) and the art assets, game worlds and rules of play that comprised the player&#39;s gaming experience. The value of this separation became evident as developers began licensing games and retooling them into new products by creating new art, world layouts, weapons, characters, vehicles and game rules with only minimal changes to the &quot;engine&quot; software. This marked the birth of the &quot;mod community&quot;-a group of individual gamers and small independent studios that built new games by modifying existing games, using free toolkits pro- vided by the original developers. Towards the end of the 1990s, some games like Quake III Arena and Unreal were designed with reuse and &quot;modding&quot; in mind. Engines were made highly customizable via scripting languages like id&#39;s Quake C, and engine licensing began to be a viable secondary revenue stream for the developers who created them. Today, game developers can license a game engine and reuse significant portions of its key software components in order to build games. While this practice still involves considerable investment in custom software engineering, it can be much more economical than developing all of the core engine components in-house. The line between a game and its engine is often blurry.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some engines make a reasonably clear distinction, while others make almost no attempt to separate the two. In one game, the rendering code might &quot;know&quot; specifi-cally how to draw an orc. In another game, the rendering engine might provide general-purpose material and shading facilities, and &quot;orc-ness&quot; might be defined entirely in data. No studio makes a perfectly clear separation between the game and the engine, which is understandable considering that the definitions of these two components often shift as the game&#39;s design solidifies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Arguably a data-driven architecture is what differentiates a game engine from a piece of software that is a game but not an engine. When a game contains hard-coded logic or game rules, or employs special-case code to render specific types of game objects, it becomes difficult or impossible to reuse that software to make a different game. We should probably reserve the term &quot;game engine&quot; for software that is extensible and can be used as the foundation for many different games without major modification.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Clearly this is not a black-and-white distinction. We can think of a gamut of reusability onto which every engine falls. One would think that a game engine could be something akin to Apple QuickTime or Microsoft Windows Media Player-a general-purpose piece of software capable of playing virtually any game content imaginable. However, this ideal has not yet been achieved (and may never be). Most game engines are carefully crafted and fine-tuned to run a particular game on a particular hardware platform. And even the most general-purpose multiplatform engines are really only suitable for building games in one particular genre, such as first-person shooters or racing games. It&#39;s safe to say that the more general-purpose a game engine or middleware component is, the less optimal it is for running a particular game on a particular platform.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon occurs because designing any efficient piece of software invariably entails making trade-offs, and those trade-offs are based on assumptions about how the software will be used and/or about the target hardware on which it will run. For example, a rendering engine that was designed to handle intimate indoor environments probably won&#39;t be very good at rendering vast outdoor environments. The indoor engine might use a binary space partitioning (BSP) tree or portal system to ensure that no geometry is drawn that is being occluded by walls or objects that are closer to the camera. The outdoor engine, on the other hand, might use a less-exact occlusion mechanism, or none at all, but it probably makes aggressive use of level-of-detail (LOD) techniques to ensure that distant objects are rendered with a minimum number of triangles, while using high-resolution triangle meshes for geome-try that is close to the camera.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The advent of ever-faster computer hardware and specialized graphics cards, along with ever-more-efficient rendering algorithms and data structures, is beginning to soften the differences between the graphics engines of different genres. It is now possible to use a first-person shooter engine to build a real-time strategy game, for example. However, the trade-off between generality and optimality still exists. A game can always be made more impressive by fine-tuning the engine to the specific requirements and constraints of a particular game and/or hardware platform.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Engine Differences Across Genres&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Game engines are typically somewhat genre specific. An engine designed for a two-person fighting game in a boxing ring will be very different from a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) engine or a first-person shooter (FPS) engine or a real-time strategy (RTS) engine. However, there is also a great deal of overlap-all 3D games, regardless of genre, require some form of low-level user input from the joypad, keyboard and/or mouse, some form of 3D mesh rendering, some form of heads-up display (HUD) including text rendering in a variety of fonts, a powerful audio system, and the list goes on. So while the Unreal Engine, for example, was designed for first-person shooter games, it has been used successfully to construct games in a number of other genres as well, including simulator games, like Farming Simulator 15 ( FS 15 mods ) and the wildly popular third-person shooter franchise Gears of War by Epic Games and the smash hits Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City by Rocksteady Studios.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Secrets to an Amazing Role-Playing Game&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Role-playing games are a very specialist type of game that really need a far greater attention to detail than other less immersive genres. As the computerized version of the genre took off there were a lot of money hungry companies who decided to storm into the genre without really trying to understand what the vital elements of a role-playing game are. In some cases, these companies have actually had the audacity to buy out smaller companies who did know the genre and they destroyed long-held legacies of great traditional games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Considering that this may have an impact on the future of computerized role-playing games I have felt it to be of importance to educate these gaming giants in an effort to help them understand the only thing that matters to them. In order to sell role-playing games you need an audience willing to buy the product and if a company consistently puts out dodgy shooters in the guise of apparent role-playing games they&#39;ll only destroy their reputation and go bankrupt. I know that the word bankrupt is a word that these money hungry companies recognises and so I emphasise one point, try to sell dodgy shooters to role-playing fans and you will go bankrupt!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I have been a role-playing gamer for about thirty years and I fell in love with only two systems that I probably can&#39;t name because of article writing guidelines. What I can say is that very few game producing companies have come even close to the pen and paper versions of the best role-playing games on the market, you know, the ones that people actually enjoy playing. I will say that I rejoiced when role-playing games became computerized as it meant I could do my role-playing without the need to hunt for people with similar tastes and even though some games have risen to become great role-playing games, they are sadly few and far between. On that note, of the styles of role-playing games that include pen and paper, computerized games and online games, there is only one type that can meet the fully immersive needs of a role-player and I&#39;ll reveal why later.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Okay, what are the elements of a great role-playing game then? I&#39;ll give you one at a time but the very most important piece of advice to keep in mind during this whole discussion is immersion. To be a truly great role-playing game, it has to grab the players attention and not deliver diversions that allow the player to slip back into the reality of the real world. The player must be kept in the fictional world if they are to feel that they have experienced a great role-playing game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the most vital elements of immersion is a storyline; a really believable and yet gripping storyline. A role player doesn&#39;t want to load up the newest game and find to their dismay that storyline consists of the flimsy idea that they have to kill heaps of things to get enough experience to kill the apparent bad guy. Who wants to play a game where the bad guy is designated the bad guy without good reason? Have you played a game where you are part of one group of people and you&#39;ve been chosen to defeat the other group of people but there&#39;s no actual evidence that shows why the other group is bad? The worst of these are the recent thug games where one criminal organisation wants to defeat another criminal organisation and you&#39;re the hitman. Who is really that stupid to fall for such a terrible storyline? It&#39;s certainly not for intelligent role-players.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A good storyline can&#39;t be a shallow excuse for a war and it has to be something you&#39;d want to be a part of. The storyline also has to be included in the gameplay itself and delivered in a way that doesn&#39;t interrupt the reality of the gameplay either. There&#39;s nothing worse than a big cut-scene that drops into the middle of the game and makes you sit idle for more than a minute or two. For role-play gamers, the immersion of the game comes from being the character, not from watching the cut-scenes as if you were watching television. What&#39;s next... advertisements?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another part of a great game play experience is being aware that you have been a part of the fictional world since you were born. This is conveyed by knowing where things are in the world and knowing who the current leaders are, along with knowing current events. This can be done cleverly by feeding snippets of information in a natural manner during conversations with non-player characters. Some extremely vital information can be revealed in otherwise meaningless banter, just like in the world you&#39;re immersed in right now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One thing that will jolt a role player out of a game is a sudden unwanted conversation with a hastily introduced character who explains where the next local town is and that you have to be careful because there&#39;s a war on or some such thing. This is only done in games where the maps are updated as you discover places of interest. Making a major city that lies not ten miles from your current position something that you have to discover is ridiculous at best and only suits scenarios where you&#39;ve been teleported into a new reality or you&#39;ve lost your memory although the latter should be used sparingly as there are already too many games out there that rely on the character having amnesia. Discovery can be implemented in far more subtle ways by having secret areas within already well-known places and it is this that gives a role-player a sense of discovery.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another immersion problem is the introduction of a love interest in a game without any participation on your part. You&#39;re playing away, minding your own business and then all of a sudden, one of the infatuated characters that you never knew existed, has an impact on gameplay because of a supposed vital role they play in the group you&#39;re a part of. They should, at the least, allow a bit of flirting in the conversation paths before a love interest is thrust into the mix. For me, someone suddenly having that kind of interest is an immersion breaker because there was nothing at all that prompted a relationship. If there is a love interest possibility in the game, then it needs to be introduced in a believable way and shouldn&#39;t be out of the characters control.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There was one game in which this happened and the involvement of two love interests was the excuse for one of the non-player characters to do worse at being a support while the other became a great support. Sure, the idea was novel but it was also very childish because it assumed that these two love interests were so enamoured with the player that neither could do without him. It was worse than watching Baywatch or Desperate Housewives.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m only going to add one more element to the mix because I just wouldn&#39;t reach a conclusion if I allowed myself to point out every requirement of the best role-playing games. As I stated before, the important factor is immersion. A real deal breaker for me is the inability to develop the type of character I want. I&#39;ve encountered this more often than not in games where you have no choice over the skills that you character can develop. Of course, this is the worst scenario and there are many games that allow limited development but there are only a handful of games that allow a real sense of development.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A truly great role-playing game has to allow players to develop in any direction and compensate for this flexibility by incorporating multiple paths through the game. There&#39;s no point in creating a computerized role-playing game if the character does the same thing in every single play through of the game. The most annoying of these issues is a game where you can have a spell wielding character but they develop the exact same spells at exactly the same point in every run of the game. It&#39;s a little more forgivable for warrior types but even in this case there are many games which allow for dozens of different fighting styles.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, if I were to continue with this discussion I&#39;d add other topics like the renaming of attributes with no good cause, allowing for more than one quest to be given at a time, real world purchase requirements during the game and other ridiculous practices.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I did promise to show which game type was the best for role-playing games though so, here it is. Non-online computerized games are the only games that allow for full immersion and I&#39;ll explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unlike table-top games, you aren&#39;t interrupted by the requirement to physically reach out and move pieces which takes you out of the role of the piece itself. Compared to pen and paper games, you aren&#39;t required to look up tables or enter long boring discussions on how rules should be interpreted. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games don&#39;t meet the requirements either and I know some of you will be surprised but when was the last time you were playing a computerized role-playing game and one of the other players had to leave because they had to go to work and they informed you it was a different time in their part of the world.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Computerized role-playing games are the only role-playing game type where the characters stay in the game, you don&#39;t have to suddenly work out if something is allowable by the rules and the user interface stays consistent so that the immersion is most efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, the best role-playing games are stand-alone home computer based and don&#39;t involve interaction with other real world people who will throw a spanner in the immersion works. The storyline must be solid and delivered in a natural manner, a deliverable assumption that your character already knows the fictional world, no instant love interests out of nowhere and the ability to develop your character in any direction seamlessly along with plot paths that allow for these developments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I only hope that the gaming companies pay attention to this and realise that they are making role-playing games for role-players and if they&#39;re not in the market for role-players, then they should call their games by a different genre.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/feeds/6683391814514532963/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/2022/02/what-is-game.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default/6683391814514532963'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8857564007068251657/posts/default/6683391814514532963'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://sentenceeee.blogspot.com/2022/02/what-is-game.html' title='What Is a Game?'/><author><name>controlling</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11905223875670470178</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>

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