The Past, Present, and Possible Future of Magic Duel

[Archivist's Note: The words presented herein do not appear to have originated from Grido, but from Muratus del Mur. However, since no attribution has been given to Muratus del Mur, though the authorship seems obvious, this article shall remain listed under Grido's body of work until such a time as Grido states that it is his or that it comes from Muratus del Mur, or until Muratus del Mur claims authorship of it, if it is his to claim. There shall be no sanctions put upon Grido should he have unintentionally plagiarized Muratus del Mur. --Innocence]

First of all, I kind of expected this reaction [to asking about if you wanted a game reset], in fact I was curious to see if such an important question will pass unnoticed among all the others, it seems some of you do care :D

Now, let me tell you a what I think about a reset.
You could say I have a "no-reset" policy, the games foundation depends on that, and I am not talking about players that will get angry....I am talking about the way players become legends, by role-play or by insane stats. A reset will accomplish nothing. A truly stable game should not depend on periodic resets.
I am proud that even in alpha stage, the last reset was ages ago, I think in the 10,000 - 30,000 ID range (I might be wrong on that).

It seems we sort of have an ecosystem here. There is no need of a reset, those that can unbalance the "ecosystem" too much are eliminated by time. Where is Wodin? Actraiser? I could mention some "still alive" names here too, those that still do quite a "damage".

A game with periodic resets will have no place for legends.

That was the good part.
Now the bad one;

Because the engine is constantly changing and some of you were "born" in ages that had different rules, and because of other factors too, it's now very, very difficult to understand if some things in the system are well-balanced or not. I am talking about creature abilities, ways of fighting, etc.

The role-play part also suffers, but in a different way. When I started this project ...what was it....not so many years ago... I had just a vague image of how to create a self-supporting system of such complexity. It was more of a combination of passion, curiosity and total devotion to one concept. As I saw how things actually work in a LIVING system, I understood that this had nothing to do with a pre-planned game concept. The strings that control the game are now very, very delicate and are almost completely out of the programming part.

With the new knowledge I accumulated on the way, I understood how I could make things different and more dynamic...but now I have to stick with the current system and add just the things that are allowed "by the system".

If you've read this far, you deserve a bit of an insight into MagicDuel's latest technology.
I am known for writing long posts, some of you have no patience to read them but those that do understand something more.

Let's imagine for a while, if I was to create the MagicDuel world from scratch, what I would keep and what I would change from the current MagicDuel world as you know it.

[Issue: Storyline Vs Live Adventure]
One of the things that I would change is the story. The adventure log is too exclusive and is not covering all the things that could be covered. The storyline, as in the chapters written by Ady, is not..I am sorry to say...obsolete. It's still the driving concept of the role-playing, but the abrupt end of the missing chapter 3 makes it confusing and disappointing.
I initially wanted to expand the story indefinitely, many chapters and branches. I then realised that this has to be done by one man and that man could have different concepts to me at some points, and also that man would have a limit to the amount of work he can do. Ady started to "crash" when the idea of chapter 4 came in.... So that is not an efficient way to force someone to write let's say 10 chapters... and even so that would have a limit.

[Solution: Factions and Radical Change]
To solve this I have to entirely change the importance of the start-up story, players can't count on it as the main story if it leaves them without an end and without any clues. So MP2 appeared, as a level BEFORE the current story. The game play has to change to put the focus on what the players do, not on a predefined story. The predefined story should be a legend, a main guide as it is NOW, but now there is no connection between the storyline and what the players actually do.
The quest page becomes obsolete very fast and should be replaced with RPC quests and/or an interactive story, written live, same as adventure log but with branches, written by many people. This in turn brings up a lot of more issues, like inconsistency.
This change is currently in progress with the MP2/Illusions/Factions.

[Issue: Fighting, Creatures Overpowered]
Surprisingly that's not something that can be solved the usual way, by changing stats. That's part of the "MagicDuel high-tech". The changes involve a dynamic system that will shift focus from fighting to role-play and back. I already have made some big changes without you, the players, noticing it :D
The fighting interface as you know it now it's currently just a front face of the octopus that is spreading behind it. You fight now for stats, cool, grinding, what can I say? I don't like it, but most do..... the new system will reveal some surprises...
Imagine what if when you get over 3000 attack, your fighting interface will change into something else, or if you get regeneration over 100 (just as low) your fighting interface will change to a healer interface. These changes are already in development but I still have to observe the current evolution of the realm to understand how such changes could be presented without too big a shock. As I stated in another article on the archives, the key is order by chaos.
A fluid system that will change in an unpredictable way that does not have to be stable, in fact its stability is based on its instability.

It's far more complicated to plan such a living world than it looks like, I am actually not planning anything, I am just adjusting the sails on a very big ship that is constantly moving. Its more like navigating then planning.

[Issue: Suspense and Development]
Part of the game addiction is created by the constant evolution. When you decide that you've had enough and know how things are going, you will always be curious to see what's next on the news log. That's not a planned thing, it's something that simply happened but I now start to analyse it deeper and try to learn from it.
At some point, again, instability is the stability of the entire system.

[Suggestions: Go Wild!]
I want to go wilder than this. But considering the entire MagicDuel realm as my personal playground is not something I should do. The very few of you that have tested some of the things I am working on know how bad things can turn, and not all of you are "experimentalists".
What I will do is to move ahead at a much slower rate, and do the things I want to do slowly and integrate them with the current system. At some point this will cause ruptures in the fluidity of the game play, and also conflicts of logic. This is already happening but it's the next best thing to stability, as long as I want a constantly evolving world.

Most games at this point would say "STOP! Lets move it to version 1 and stabilize, we will reset it twice a year and that's it, it's final". I, on the other hand, like to think of it as a "perpetual alpha". MagicDuel is an experiment, live with it, might be the best experiment you ever experienced, might be a total disappointment.

[Insight on "Go Wild!"]
One of the briefly described features is the player DNA. Currently it's at a basic stage where players are grouped based on similar decision patterns. That's not put too much use, but it's the framework of later development. One of the most interesting uses of this data is the prediction of social relations. For that to happen I still have to learn more about the time factor, the realm is relatively new and it's uncertain how time affects these subtle interactions. One of the wildest features I have in mind right now, that I will probably start to work on right away, after the "alcohol" in my system fades. Oops I didn't just say that did i?.... Is a very advanced sensation interaction bot. The technical name might not be the most suited for this, but when I move forward with it I am sure I will be able to come up with something more friendly maybe "Angiens" is a good name for it :D

This system will be able to understand what you are saying, but not analyse it in a structural sense. You won't be able to communicate with it with spoken language, the complicated logic patterns for that are of no use for me in this experiment. There are lots of speaking bots, or at least I suppose there are, not that I know of any, but I have a good image how to build one.

This "bot" will be able to sense feelings. I know it sounds exaggerated. Interaction with it will be something like, you talk to "it" and you will get replies that make no sense, but they DO make sense if thought about in an emotional way. Right now I have a clue how to do this on a basic level, for example you put together some ideas and "it" will be able to tell how you are feeling, or reply with a "conclusion" or "mixture" of the expressed feelings in the form of a word. The many meanings of a single word will be part of the flavour and well thought out by this system.

Pfff... I feel like I'm talking to much : D
For the tech geeks out there, this won't be done by using neural networks as you might expect. The innovation actually comes from here. A learning system capable of processing information, and adapting to it without using neural network programming. Neural nets require lots and lots of info, and in such a way that will only lead to vague answers suited for any occasion. What I need is a system that is able to create new information, not just retrieve it. Wow, now that sounds wild I know, but I have a little tiny secret about how to do this, and since I feel like talking so much about MagicDuel high-tech stuff tonight, I will tell you.

Google uses a similar technology as far as I can tell, for image searches. They might be using neural nets after all, anyway I actually didn't research it that much, I like to base my judgement on observations and not on rumours. The image search LEARNS from the visitors and because people think about images the same way, it's able to use that info for pleasing the vast majority. Google can do this either way, they have the resources needed, and the information to create a neural net for this, or the ingenuousness to create a different system, I am not sure if it's not both actually. It's no coincidence that g-mail actually asks you not to delete email but to archive them. I'm suspecting it's using user behaviour analysis from browsing AND logical content in the e-mails to improve their accuracy not only in searches, but also in what people feel when using their services. It's one step forward than normal "friendly user interface design", some could feel like brainwashed or manipulated, but I definitely like it... At least I am thinking I am insignificant, and I have nothing to hide *cough* *cough* so if some corporation mastermind wants to learn from my web behaviour to improve the services it is offering back to me, its fine with me. Wow, sorry, off topic a bit there.

Back. So I was talking about a system that will react and look like it's thinking but is not using neural networks and also ..this is important.. will not be a data retrieving system or preprogrammed.

I am a "principles freak" you all know that. I am thinking that behind all existing things there are some governing ways, like a bigger pattern that everything fits into. It has nothing to do with religion. You can see this pattern in small things or even galaxies ..What you do not see or realise are the small patterns across the way, the ones that are complex enough to avoid your lucid judgement. The magic principles of the game are as much fantasy as I am a wizard with a big hat and a staff. But they govern a slightly different aspect, more of a larger one, than the principles I need to accomplish this advanced bot.

Disclaimer: I must say this, this is not my first experiment, I have the bad habit of starting things then leave them to float into the forgotten...Well they are not forgotten, just adapting into others, but still as some may perceive them I will probably be considered at some point that I am speaking bullshit and then do nothing.

My idea of this "bot" is to make it understand some principles and react according to them. That sounds like a lot of computing you might think. But again, I will not use neural nets or some super server trying billions of combinations to fit the right one.

Someone stop me before I say this ...

I will use YOUR neural networks. : D : D : D I wish I could do that in a natural way based on a swift integration with the current engine, but I can't, it's far too rigid for this and until I make it more flexible it'll still be some time. That's why I will accelerate this a bit. At some point I will request some of you to submit something like a ..survey.. it won't actually be a survey, but a learning system. It will not learn from individual people, but will learn from comparing all of you. What it will learn are not answers... again I must underline this, this is not a data retrieval system or an adapted neural net. It will learn an abstract concept. The way to store this concept and work with it I will keep for now a BIG SECRET. I have found a way to do this that I fear two things about; it might turn out to be a total nonsense and then people will think of it as absurd when the results don't come out as expected, or second, and I like to think this is it, it's a very, very innovative way that some other programmer, or even a big company will invest and research into it and I will not be able to compete with my own idea later. Also, a third more subjective reason is that I feel bad disclosing such things until I put them in practice, it ruins a certain feeling I have about the whole thing.

Speaking about feelings, this entire project is made out of feelings, I am just lucky to know a bit of programming to express or to "host" them.

I have a very strong feeling that this experimental advanced sensation interaction bot has at least a very strong research reason, if not an actual use. It might turn out to be useless as a real feature for you to face daily in-game, but these kind of "experiments" are what keep me kicking, that and your positive feedback, that's the perfect recipe for any developer, and those that disagree with it have picked the wrong profession.

Some of you might think at this point that I am throwing some bullshit terms and pretend like doing a great thing when in fact its nothing. I completely understand that, mainly because when I get carried away by such insights on the game mechanics things start to have a slight Sci-Fi feeling. They do so because they are. I do not base my programming on pure logic, although I have very strong logic, usually.

If I will tell you how the bot system will handle its data and take is decisions, it will throw you in a completely out of the world scene. And I want my players to keep their sanity :D At least partially :D I do not believe in hard work when it comes to programming. I am doing hard work for MagicDuel, for the last few years, almost daily, and it's persisting and improving, but that's only "maintenance" work. The beauty and results of the programming required for such "unstable" systems, such as; MagicDuel requires a different type of programming/programmer, a bit of a crazy mind like mine I dare to say. It requires that connection between "out of programming world" and code, I do not consider myself mainly a programmer, programming is just a tool, I think that tells us everything.

Even if it isn't successful, after, I will experiment with this a bit and see what "damage" it can do, I will release a part of the basic concepts for others to study and improve, but if it works, well you might not hear about this again :D but you will also not be able to tell if Muratus del Mur is a bot reading your mind or just a busy programmer that pays little attention to what you're saying.

I honestly hope to find people out there that have the required mindset and will to work on these types of experiments, but unfortunately, even if 60% of you have great ideas, less than 0.01% have what I need for this particular experiment, so there's no way I could share the workload with someone about this. All I can do is to tell you about it and challenge you to read endless posts like this one :)

Yeah, I'm not sober right now, but I do love you all and I can think straight, partially at least :)
and if I was sober I would never tell you about my crazy experiments at all.

My first experiment of this kind was a neural net that did something very similar, it could find synonyms to ideas based on what it learned from previous inputs. It was a fun thing to do, about 3 days of hard work, but not much excitement at the end of it when I realised that neural nets are far more complex and I can't reach their full use because of server limits and of course because I know no programming language that could be used for this, and neural nets for php are more like a slow monstrosity. Also it was a disappointment because I knew all the info came from previously learned patterns. I wanted something MORE. I started to imagine computing systems that use much more than on/off bits, and have more states to flavour a complex thinking, but it was still no use, I have no technical way to put that into practice and I have no advance knowledge in microchips either, so it was fun thinking but futile. Then I realised I was looking the wrong way. I couldn't see the forest because of the trees. Too much complex programming to try to mimic natural algorithms is pointless, the solution is much simpler if you look at it from a different perspective. A few of you know about my obsession to learn how to draw. I gave up drawing courses and tutorials, they are simply NOT what I want. This has very much to do with the current "bot" subject. I was looking at a picture and trying to replicate it over and over again, but each time I followed the lines it ended up as something completely different. The moment I realised that the lines are not important, and I tried to keep the big picture in mind while drawing by "sensation", things started to work better, but still, I'm a noob. Talent after all might not be something that can be learnt, regardless of how much you try, I still have to prove that wrong :D

So, drawing, big picture , get it? In the same way, programming something in ultra detail leads nowhere. You start missing the point and get lost in details that eventually, even if they are almost perfect, do not mirror what you wanted from the start. That's why I have to try this regardless of how insane it might sound. The actual brain of this machine will not be based on programming at all. It won't be some huge collective brain, or a dude locked in a room and paid to do that, lol... but I can't tell you more for now ahhh....I already told you it's not about programming, too much info , I will have to kill you after :)))) Well I think if you've read this far you must be some kind of a hero or something. Maybe if I tell you now what the Golemus land weapon does you won't realize it because you would be too well-integrated in the monotony of reading all this.

I think I am sometimes competing with "I am Bored" for his role. But, it's a long night ahead and I have nothing better to do, since I am all alone in the middle of a village, without much technology and my internet here only allows me to see sites but without images :( so, I write...
Yup I'm not at home, I ran away after the festival ended and I will be back in a week or so, but psst don't tell anyone :D

Ah by the way, why not split this into a nice organized topic, after all the more I write the less the chances are that most of all will follow so I can start telling better things :D And also I very much enjoy being the one to disregard my own rules and requirements in general. I must admit that anyone that writes such a mixture of thoughts would probably just get a tag called "boring person" and only much later people would start to see if there's indeed something behind the boredom or not. In my case, I have that extra bit of popularity that allows me to challenge you into reading this, so don't start to destroy the forum now and turn it into a personal blog like I do :D What was I saying about ..oh yes..I found here, in the middle of nowhere, some of my plans for a great puzzle I made some time ago, because I was bored and had no internet (not that I have too much now), I will probably put it into play. It involves some rotating discs and plans for an encryption machine that you will have to build in order to decipher the code. It's also possible by programming it, but for most of you it will be easier just to follow the blueprints and BUILD it. Now that sounds fun I think, to build the things you need to decipher something, instead of gathering clues and activating a web interface, it sounds fun to me anyway, and I wish more RPC's would do things like that. Actually the code deciphering part is not a good example, it's probably the easiest way to do a puzzle and I already see too many of them in quests.

I've started to believe that after last Christmas I became addicted to my absolute abuse of power, but don't you like that? he he

Oh what else...hmm, I know I wanted to say something more ..hmm
Ah yes, advertising is back on, for some time actually, recession is still hitting hard and things do not look at all good, but surviving. I like to think that you actually care, if not, no problem. I am simply forcing you to be my co-pilots on steering the big MagicDuel ship...and its not a spaceship *cough*ren*cough*
Actually, when it does become a spaceship you will know I lost it :))) Oh yes, confessions stage, "alcohol" starting to fade maybe...

I have to say that I've sacrificed some of my initial concepts because of some players. In a bad way I mean. I was (and maybe still am) thinking that there should be a villain and a factor of controversy in any system in order to keep it dynamic and avoid a steady way to collapse. Normally I would have planned to do this in a different way, but some things led me to take personal decisions and mask them so that they will not be publicly admitted. Damn I should shut up, but this helps me organize my thoughts, so yes..I am using you as my personal psychiatrist lol.

Some of the villains around here made me put an invisible mark on them, and judge them and all the ones surrounding them. It's not because of what happened, but that triggered it. I think that these negative factors shift the MagicDuel world in an unwanted direction. I could simply erase some of the ancient accounts that cause this, and count on the fact that they will simply give up. But I can't do it, it's far more interesting to see what destruction looks like and understand it, than to paranoidly avoid it and shut it down. These accounts made me "cheat" so to speak, not seriously, but I did sabotage some of them silently, and cut some of their connections to limit "the spreading of their evil" ...I love when I sound like a mad inquisitor.

Because I had to do this, I have the feeling the games "stability by chaos" had to suffer a lot, and I started a hunt that will lead nowhere in the end. MP7, MP2, and factions are all things orientated to role-play and made so that they will "clean" the grinders of their dark desires to "beat the world". MP7 is simply cancelling all current achievements, and if this sounds scary it still has some nice things to counter it.

I'd actually like more of the game to be unbalanced towards role-play than fighting, BUT I admit I should do this differently and be fair to everybody, including those that destroy the things I built. Cheating loyalty points to favour certain alliance members even if they did not know about it, or faking some head contest scores, are not things I am proud of, and NO they are not part of "ruling the realm". They are just my reaction to an unstable system and to a constantly changing personal life. I guess it all started when in RL I realized that I can hate a very close friend as my biggest enemy, I think that's then when I started to take subjective decisions and not think about the bigger plan in things. It all happened at Christmas/New Year, I realize that it's wrong, but I don't feel like stopping doing it. I learned not to post on the news log when I am angry, because that causes a mass reaction and everybody seems to be angry for whatever reason, I also learned not to make it public any more because that causes a wave of paranoia, like with the traps set for cheaters....but I am still learning. All my life I have been learning, every second of it, I can't say there is one single thing that I know all about. I sometimes appear as having a weak point of view or a cowards attitude regarding some situations. Some people have thought, at one time or another, things like "he is the almighty Mur, why is he not simply changing this and that", well ..that's because inside me I still have a big conflict between judgement and feelings. Sometimes I know things should be taken care of in a certain way, but I also feel they should be left like they are and observe their evolution. There's not a single time that I've had to change the things I've said just to fit the situation. I might appear like a man with strong words to some, or a manipulated puppet to others, but you have no clue whatsoever how I see things inside my head. ..or you maybe have a bit of a clue, you've read this far after all.

The Japanese could call this SUI, water, a principle (not only an element) that indicates adaptation to any situation, fluidity. "Mur" is a "fire" character mostly, sometimes it becomes a "wind" character when it's surrounded by big crowds, and when it comes to decisions LOOKS like an "earth" character, mostly immovable, but behind the scenes my decisions are actually a mixture of "water" for flexibility and "fire" for the passion I put in at that moment. Although it sounds like a random decision, logic driven just by others words and by personal mood, I somehow have something that makes it all make sense, I don't know whether that is myself, it's not my personality, because I have many... Some know Mur, some knew Muratus del Mur, some know Knator Commander, some the Shade Sentinel, some knew King Manu, and some know Manu day by day. I don't know who I am myself, I might be all at once or maybe I've simply lost it. I've seen beautiful minds got lost in MagicDuel, so right now I am not sure if I am a victim of my own creation, or the creation is a victim of myself, and you know what? I don't care, live with it and have super fun while you do.

Should I torture your patience some more? Of course!
But only with one more bit of information that I will not give you any more clues about for now, I love tormenting you don't I?

"THE MAP IS BIGGER"