VE World, issue #11
Bloodlines Announced
DreamState today announced the first Massively Multiplayer Virtual Experience with the upcoming title ‘Bloodlines’
DreamState will dedicate a significant portion of its HMI grid to create an ancient and primitive world in which the player embarks on the quest to establish a bloodline and struggle for survival in a hostile environment to subsequently expand a family tree and range of influence.
The ancient world is loosely based on our known history with enough creative license to ensure originality and unpredictability while simultaneously sticking to some degree of physical and biological authenticity. Therefore the world of Bloodline is comparable but different and, most important of all, unscripted so the player can and will influence the unfolding of an alternative history ... while it unfolds.
Bloodline is currently in Alpha stage with developers working with Dreamers on various species the player can Experience, ranging from powerful Neanderthalensis[1] via the elegant Denisovians[2] to the elusive and strange Red Deer Cave[3] People and the small and nimble Floresiensis[4] but more species and subspecies are being developed and tested continuously. The closed and subsequent open beta will allow for Loggers, follow the link below to register (v1.3 HMI minimum).
It is speculated that DreamState will pit players against each other in the Open Beta to work against or, if preferred with, each other to establish a dominant (mix of) species in a certain as of yet undisclosed period of time, to establish tribes and interlinking relations to cross into Launch.
The game will officially launch (for Passive Experience Subscriptions) just before a literally explosive finale of the Beta Stages, which DreamState has confirmed will be called the ‘Toba Catastrophe’, an event with similar impact as the established Nazca Plate Shift.
DreamState has confirmed that, contrary to previous Virtual Experiences, players can choose from a range of subscription levels, each with increasing character perks and other In Experience bonuses. The ratio of Dreamers and Loggers is not known at this time, nor is the ratio of Players and NPC’s
We’ll keep you posted.
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VE World, issue #47
DreamState Caves In
Caving in to massive demand from all sides (Dreamers, Loggers and Riders) DreamState announced to speed up the MMVE Bloodline by rapidly introducing agriculture[1] and metallurgy to enable the expansion of budding civilisations at an increased rate. What took us hundreds of thousands of years of trial and error after the Nazca Plate Shift will be, in effect, handed over by deities shortly after the end of Beta.
Dreamstate has confirmed that one ‘Demeter’[2] will introduce agriculture. Metallurgy, what again took us a massive timespan to discover and develop, will be made available by an as of yet unknown deity.
Some parents have expressed concern that this action will once again introduce the abolished idiocy of religion into the brains of their vulnerable children. DreamState CEO Hatse Knatse has quipped in an interview that “Hardly anybody is that stupid anymore, not even children. I’m in doubt about some parents though. If you believe that, where do you stop believing?”
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It Started With Rodents
research on the development of Virtual Experiences
GGsquare et all
excerpt
Early in the 21st century researchers linked the brains of two rats, mediated by a computer[1], unwittingly launching The Singularity and subsequent Intelligence Explosion. After all, there’s not as many synapses in a rat’s brain (448 × 109) as their are in a human brain (adult average 1014–1015) [2] but once you start linking these the number grows exponentially; 2 rats equals roughly around 2 x 1023 synapses, 3 rats 9 x 1034 and the shit hit the fan.
Within a few years the technology was available to link Human Brains into a grid (now commonly known as the Human Machine Interface Grid or HMI Grid). The startup company DreamState combined this technology with induced coma, allowing people to enter a Dreamstate in which their brains for the largest part generated computing power for the growing Artificial (some say Autonomous) intelligence while a small portion of their brains were ‘dreaming’ a Virtual Existence, selected from a menu of available scenarios. These existences could be ‘tapped into’ or ‘Ridden’ by individuals linking their brain into the HMI grid, allowing to piggyback on the life-like experiences of Dreamers.
A portion of these Virtual Experience scenarios in which Dreamers engaged were based on known history, a vast portion revolved around gaming and an equally huge percentage was catering to the adult industry.
DreamState’s first Massively Multiplayer Virtual Experience ‘Bloodlines’, combining these main elements, exponentially increased the demand and subsequent number of Dreamers. After all, dreaming an heroic existence beats the slums of Mumbai any day of the week and HMI centres (also known as Brain Farms or Zombie Farms) popped up across the globe.
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VE World, issue #113
DreamState Refuses to Budge
A growing number of participants in the MM Virtual Experience ‘Bloodlines’ are complaining that one of the more recent professions available, released with the ‘Enlightenment’ expansion set does not deliver as promised. After all, the now end-game content called the ‘standard model’ (in a subset of the Science profession called physics) does explain the immediate environment of the Experience Setting but fails to do so on a larger scale[1][2]. DreamState explains this by stating that the backdrop (universe) is not parsed but rendered, the game-world ends at the outer reaches of the solar system. Physics in the Virtual Environment, and thus the behaviour of the universe, can’t be explained like in the Real World. Dreamers and Players are investing huge amounts of time and resources to dig deeper into sub atomic particles, unable to understand (as is the case in a Virtual Experience, the player isn’t aware the world is not real) this is a pointless effort.
Players are now protesting that these resources spent should in some way be returned. But DreamState maintains that it is ‘the journey and not the destination’ that provides player satisfaction.
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VE World, issue #147
More Pressure on DreamState
After (still) increasing pressure by end-game players in the Science Profession (see VE World, issue #113) another issue is surfacing fast in the Player and Logger communities (Dreamers are by their very nature unaware of the reality outside of the VE) and not for the first time; the insurmountable power of first generation (vanilla) players. This old group[1] has amassed so much wealth and influence that it is nearly impossible for new players, but also for subsequent characters of relatively veteran players (a couple of generations into their Bloodline) to achieve much beyond what is dubbed the ‘diamond ceiling’. Ancient clans and families have an, as the protesters say, unrealistic and unfair share of ingame resources. For instance, 1% of the population owns 40% of the game-world’s wealth[2] according to some sources and in the American Continent[a] 80% of all financial assets is owned by 10% of the population[3].
These imbalances have occurred in the past and have been addressed by DreamState in the form of game balance patches, usually in the form of a drastic reduction in the number of NPC’s in combination with an adjustment in game mechanics. A number of times these patches evolved into dramatic changes in the Virtual Environment, such as the ‘Greek Dark Ages’[3] after the ‘Dorian Invasion’ (which never actually happened but was used to group all changes that could otherwise not be explained)[5] and most recently the ‘(Dark) Middle Ages’[6] after the legendary ‘Roman’ Guild[b] feud where the ‘Black Death’[7] fundamentally reduced the number of NPC’s, ending the relentless rule of the upper classes in a feudal system.
Speculation is rife that a balance patch is imminent.
[a] a previously separate MMVE experience in an Hunter/Gatherer setting originally developed by the Apache Corporation which was bought by DreamState and linked into the ‘Bloodlines’ MMVE with the ‘Discovery’ expansion, see VE World, issue 93
[b] during the Roman Guild feud a significant Virtual Environment portion controlled by the same clan that controlled one of the founding species (Neanderthal)[b1][b2] split up in a number of sections, the east of which managed to survive for a significant time while the west side got ripped apart, some say because of the unbalanced introduction of the ‘monotheism’[b3] religion branch. see VE World issue 63
[b2]
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DreamState HMI Centre H113i - Maintenance Log
Executive Summary
Temperatures are still rising, we can’t trace the source to anything other than increased Dreamer activity. They are getting more and more agitated. Last week 3 Dreamers overheated and had to be taken off-line, two went into catatonic state, the third is recuperating in a recovery room.
As you know, this has a negative effect on computing (output) power.
It’s not our place to advise you on how to run the VE but we’re gonna do it anyway, stop scaring the Dreamers or the available computing power might drop below the level required to maintain the complexity within the VE. If that’s your plan to begin with, you’re doing a great job.
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The New Market - publications - hard copy
# anybody got any hard copies of Virtual Experience (VE) World? Will pay well. Wink twice to contact.
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