Blackpool has changed. That's what I constantly hear. Money is flowing into it like some sort of economic tsunami. They even have a premiership football team now, the ultimate badge of approval. Personally, I was pretty sure it still smelled of grease and horse shit, but Louise has a shorter memory. So, it was decided we'd go to the promenade after we'd finished at the Zoo (more on that later), which was the main reason for the trip.

What the hell is going on with the Stag and Hen Nights? Actually, it's not so much the Hen Nights, it's the Stag Nights. Within three minutes of getting out of the car I was surrounded by people dressed as school girls in tight white shirts and short skirts with long socks and trainers. Win. Well, it would be if they weren't big hairy blokes. This gaggle of hairy schoolgirls also had two vicars complete with their arses on display like Baboons. No prude, but it was a pretty gruesome sight. It also left me thinking of exactly what conversation could actually lead to seven blokes thinking it was all a good idea? They weren't alone though, five minutes later it was five blokes dressed as sexy nurses. I'm not sure these retina scaring experiences were worth the group of gorgeous 'Daisy Dukes' parading around in the rain.

They do seem to be doing a lot of work on the promenade. The 'beach side'. I have no idea what they are doing as at the moment, it just seems to be a mounds of building materials. The trouble is, I'm not sure the coastal side of the promenade was or is the problem. It's the crap on the other side that makes the whole place feel like a complete dive. The various 'hotels' look like grime palaces and the various attractions are just a complete joke. The thing is, people must actually spend money on them. It was frightening to see one really shoddy looking 'hotel' after another with 'no vacancies' hanging in the window. How do people spend more than one day haunting the dismal promenade? What needs to happen is a serious gutting and upgrade of the 'hotel and attraction' side. Blackpool needs to become too expensive for its current customer base by providing better attractions and better hotels. Oddly, the McDonalds towards the South Shore is the way to go. There are versions of 'Blackpool' across the world that have done this to one degree or another (one example being the upgrade of International Drive in Orlando, slowly but surely).

At the moment, the Blackpool target market seems to be two totally different segments. I suspect it's all a bit night and day with early evening seeing both markets clash. The groups of young people, often same sex, turning up for drunken weekends and Stag and Hen nights is obvious. They were on display as early as 1600 hours. There are only so many places that actually allow large same sex groups to invade the accommodation, Blackpool is obviously still one of them. The second group seems to be families on lower incomes, which I still find surprising as I'm not 100% convinced that Blackpool is actually a cheap holiday. I suppose it's all relative, but the hotel would seem to add up over seven days for a family group and then there is the continual expense of the cheap but not cheap attractions along the promenade?

As for the potential candidate for the Ultimate Ghost Train? Well, we started at the North Shore and by the time we'd walked all along the promenade to the South Shore, in the wet, our eyes being scarred by a range of trashy attractions, really bad 'hotels' and the low grade gene pool we couldn't be bothered. It also didn't look that impressive from the outside, but then nothing probably does in that weather. It was mostly a mental thing, our brains had moved on and we just couldn't persuade ourselves the 5 GBP each was worth it. I'll have to wait until Universal gets its act together.

The only positive thing I can say is it didn't smell of grease and horse shit? I think the rain just washed it all away.

There are various things that just seem to disappear from this world rarely to be seen again. One such thing is ghost trains. I used to like ghost trains. Let's face it, in the majority of cases they were totally crap, but there was something about them. I think it was more the potential of them than anything else. The potential of them actually being scary, atmospheric or eerie. Where did they all go? Or have they gone nowhere and I just don't frequent the same places any more? Who knows?

One question that comes to mind is: why has no one built the Ultimate Ghost Train? Surely someone is missing a trick?

One of the best ghost trains that still exists is The Haunted Mansion at the various Disney Parks, but that isn't good enough. They need an extreme version. Teenagers love being scared witless and The Haunted Mansion ain't going to do it. Plus, the ride is a bit dated and a bit too nice. Give those Imagineers a kick up the arse, this thing has legs. The trouble with Disney is they probably couldn't push the envelope enough to make the experience truly brilliant. After all, the one truly atmospheric and edgy experience in Disney World, Alien Encounter, was re-branded to coincide with their Lilo and Stitch film and was seriously hamstrung. Pity that. Universal is probably the one to do it. They even have a number of iconic horror brands and their brand accommodates the edgier experiences.

Think about it. All the wonders of modern movie and attraction technology applied to a Ghost Train with the goal of it being being scary, atmospheric and eerie? Personally, I'd make it a blended experience so that it was partly a ride and partly a walk through attraction. I'd also pace the experience, given people time to soak up the atmosphere, engage with the story, have intense personal scenes and big grand sequences. Use the latest prosthetics and actors in great costumes. It's not like the individual parts of this haven't been done, it's just no one has brought them together under the banner of a 'horror' experience. I'd give the attraction some length so the narrative could rise and fall, say about ten minutes or so.

Since neither Disney or Universal are going to create this Ultimate Ghost Train any time soon I shall have to satisfy my curiosity elsewhere. The answer may be Carnesky's Ghost Train at Blackpool. While I suspect it may not be the most terror inducing experience, it certainly looks interesting. It's a 10-minute long experience and involves live performances, actors and theatrical effects and the train has a driver so all these things can be coordinated without having to deal with a train on a set schedule. Even the name of the experience sounds like something mad out of Dr Parnassus. It has a sense of boldness, grandeur and artistic flair to it.

I may be reporting back on the experience soon.

I'm beginning to think my continued play of Dragon Age is in the balance. A part of this is driven by time and life circumstances, but that's not all of it. The main reason is the game is just grinding me down. The reason behind this cuts right to the heart of what is considered a good role-playing game.

At the moment, I've played the human noble origin, gone to Ostagar, undergone the trial of the Grey Warden, saved Ostagar and battled my way to the top of the Tower of Ishal. I then went to Lothering, defended Redcliffe, stormed Redcliffe Castle and dealt with the demon possessed child. I've met the Dalish elves but didn't go off to deal with the Werewolves. Instead, I seemed to end up entering the Mage Tower, which is where I am at the moment. Specifically, I've been pulled into some sort of dream realm by a demon of some sort. There has been numerous side quests, but I'm guessing those are the major points I've hit in the main plot strands. The best bit of the game so far has been the Redcliffe section. It felt heroic. It felt dramatic. The decisions felt like I was a protagonist in a story. It didn't reach Mass Effect 2 levels, but the game felt like it had dramatic weight and was rewarding.

I'm beginning to think the game has too much content. I know, surely there is no such thing? It was certainly one of the things the game was lauded for in the reviews. The problem is though, not all content is equal. It's just sprawling in the sense that a mediocre role-playing game a group of teenagers might play is sprawling. The ones that people talk about with great sentimentality, because they went on for years, but in truth probably weren't actually that good. You're a hero, but one of the last, everyone is against you and everyone you need to get help from just happens to have a problem that needs solving. You also have other things happen that seem like good ideas but just seem to add more content, like getting pulled into dream worlds. It feels like bad use of financial resources to me. Like an overly long, badly edited book.

Basically, it's the whole 'traditional' RPG experience. This is the point, I realise that, but I did think they'd selectively choose what to resurrect. I never finished Dragon Age's spiritual ancestors either, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II. Why? They just went on forever. A million and one side quests. A story that had you go from one place to the next without any damned end in sight. I'd cease caring before I actually got to the end. It seemed to be content for the sake of content, rather than exciting conflicts in a dramatic story. I never enjoyed those 90's games, and never really understood their appeal. I was more an Icewindale man, the simple reason being it had all the exciting party-based dungeon-delving but without all the extra fat. It simply got on with the action without all the 'bad RPG campaign' storytelling.

The point I'm at in the game is also intensely annoying. I'm happily fighting my way through the Mage Tower, the increase in encounter difficulty aside, and then the game suddenly decides to have a demon throw you into a whole dream sequence. I'm lead to believe this sequence isn't brief. It's also frustrating because my single protagonist, separated from the party, now keeps getting pasted by the enemies she has to fight in the first section of the dream. It's like Ground Hog day and just makes me want to throw the controller at the screen. I can't even come close to beating these enemies at the moment.

The other problem is I think I'm going to have to backtrack. I hate it when a game puts me in the position of having to go back to a previous save (one way back anyway). Invariably, this means I stop playing. I'm told that Dragon Age scales enemies to your party, so it shouldn't be possible to do the story in the 'wrong order' and find yourself in an 'out levelled trap'. Still, the enemies in the Mage's Tower do seem to have got a lot harder and certainly feel like they are just beyond my ability. I think part of this might be equipment and some of it may be party composition. I went into the Mage's Tower without my main party Mage (as I didn't see the point in bringing two), which might have been a mistake, as I may be missing her crowd control and damage abilities. Alistair is a problem, as he always seems to have a very weak jaw even though I put the heaviest armour that's been made available.

A part of me is thinking of either entering the Mage's Tower again with Morrigan (the mage) or going back to that point but choosing not to enter the tower and instead head back to the Dalish Elves and deal with the Werewolves first. Scaling says this shouldn't matter, but it might make a difference from the point of view of keeping me interested. Hell, it might be worth it just so I can put that damned dream sequence off for as long as possible.

I'll ponder it while I don't have time to play it.

The information released about Dragon Age 2, hitting the shelves in March 2011, seems to suggests it's going to be more of a streamlined experience like Mass Effect. This is a good thing. The question has been asked on the Internet, numerous times, as to whether the changes in Dragon Age 2 signal the end of Bioware as a traditional RPG creator? Well, one can hope.

I've never liked Collectable Card Games, the whole idea of linking financial outlay to competition and collecting was just a synergy that was just too fiendish to even contemplate. It's a work of marketing genius, of course, selling a game to a core market that has addictive personalities and then making sure you have to commit to blind purchases for rare cards to stand a chance of playing the game competitively. Hell, I remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation CCG, everyone I knew who purchased the game never actually played it but they still got involved in spending ridiculous sums for Captain Picard cards.

The collectable element wasn't the only reason, I'm also not a big fan of the nature of the competitive game. It's a form of strategic thinking that doesn't work for my brain. It's a form of problem-solving that doesn't interest me either. I've also realised something else, relatively recently, I'm not a big fan of games that involve a lot of 'off table' elements that are critical to the game. As an example, a core part of the CCG experience isn't just the playing of the game, but the building of decks. Indeed, it's quite easy to spend more time on that than actually playing the game and designing a great deck is a process to be mastered just as much as playing at the table. I even suspect some people enjoy that element more.

This has meant I've avoided card games for the most part (discreet games like Munchkin aside). Now, along come the Living Card Games and they are starting to slowly generate interest and in turn get me looking at card games generally.

The concept behind the Living Card Game is quite simple: keep the vibrant, ever changing and dynamic nature of new cards adding to the game, but remove the collectable element of blind purchases. What this essentially creates is a card game MMO model, you effectively pay so much per expansion, which come out regularly, and everyone gets the same cards. It's true, there is still an incentive to keep pace, but it's probably easier to limit games to certain expansions and you're certainly not chasing rares to even sit at the table. In fact, the expansion cards come from should be easily identifiable so expansion limits can be set? Not sure if you can do that, may check that out.

The LCG that has caught the attention of the gaming group is Warhammer: Invasion, which basically provides all the competitive, build-science addictiveness of their CCG days but with the fairer MMO model. Tried it, still not a big fan. It's still not a game I can enjoy. I can see the appeal for those of the right mind set, but I'd constantly just lose because I'm not interested in thinking in the way the game requires in order to win. Still no incentive for me to get involved.

Then The Lord of the Rings LCG comes along and it gets me pondering. You see, The Lord of the Rings LCG is a cooperative game. It's not competitive. It allows 1-2 players per core set to control a group of heroes, allies and magic items and face dangerous fiends to complete epic quests and claim victory. This moves the play away from the sort of competition I dislike, to the idea of creating an adventuring party that faces obstacles and challenges in order to achieve something. I tend to be fine with team-based competition towards an objective, and very good at it, just not individual competition purely for the sake of winning.

You see, in a way, this all comes back to the MMO model again. As not only does the LCG adopt a MMO model in terms of financial outlay and patch upgrades, they've also now found way to deliver a PvE experience rather than just a PvP one. Now, that may well be the final element of the puzzle that gets me interested. It all depends on the actual game, of course, but I do like the idea. Even the continually changing nature of it through the LCG element is appealing as there is zero external pressure to keep pace with the expansions. After all, your set of cards is designed for a 2-player experience, so your collection is its only island in terms of the play experience.

I've been involved in both internal and external roles. I've been involved in directing internal IS/IT strategy and business transformation and in external consultancy roles with an element of IS solution and IT infrastructure sales. I'm not a sales guy, I'd never suggest that, but I've been involved in consultancy-based sales, ran a sales campaign and learned that marketing and 'selling' ideas, concepts and application portfolios internally around IS/IT strategy has a lot of similarities to selling solutions externally.

Anyway, when pondering business and IS/IT strategy it always makes me think about how it influences the technology sale, since I've been faced with both scenarios. I tend to be an advocate of the framework (see diagram below) that splits business, IS and IT strategy up so that their relationships is better understood (Ward & Peppard, 2002).

I've essentially used this framework in the past internally, the business strategy establishes the objectives and direction (where and why), the IS strategy focuses on what is needed to support the business strategy through information systems that support people, process and information (what) and the IT strategy is focused on the actual technology delivery (the how). The important element is the IS strategy is a bridge between the business strategy and the technology, essentially forming a communication medium between business and technology and establishing IS demand, born from the business strategy that will be met with an IT supply. In truth, the trajectory of strategy can travel upwards as well as downwards, with technology enabling IS strategy and in turn new business strategies previously not foreseen.

All well and good internally, but what if you are an SME IT infrastructure or IS solutions supplier? Well, what I tended to conclude is this influences how you make the sale. After all, we are talking about IS demand. Demand is good.

You face trying to make technology sales, how do you do that? Well, you can always fall into making the feature-based sale. This happens a lot in software sales and I've been guilty of it myself in the past. The thinking being the features have value in themselves that will sell the product. This isn't wrong in all cases, but it is true to say the true benefit from a software sale comes from what new things things the client can do, what they can do better and what they can stop doing with respect to the software purchase. The same is true of infrastructure, purchasing a faster network or a remote working solution has features, but what really matters is what new capabilities the organisation can enable. This demands associated business change, not just the technological product itself.

You can market to what you think potential purchasers want so that you can fill that need. This can work well when statutory issues come up, such as selling a offshore rig maintenance solution after the Piper Alpha disaster, or the release of new governance rules. The risk here is you match features to wants and you are essentially back to a feature-based sale you've just tied them to signals you know or suspect the potential customer is sending out. This may be based on experience, after a number of sales you learn what key needs spurred your sale in certain sectors even if the lack of organisational change actually means it never met the want.

It seems to me the best way is to move up the food chain? As what you are essentially doing with feature-based sales and trying to market to specific wants is to fill the IS vacuum? Or divine the IS strategy by throwing darts and hoping to hit something? Not only that, you're trying to fill the IS vacuum as an outsider? If you manage to move up the food chain to the extent you can support, consult and advise on the IS strategy you are in turn facilitating your future IT supply. This is how the more pure-breed consultancies work, but it can leave the typical IS solution or IT infrastructure supplier with a conundrum.

You see, for the typical SME IS solution or IT infrastructure supplier, the business strategy and IS strategy aren't within their domain. The potential customer may not even fully understand either of these two elements themselves, or the person they are making the sale two may not. I've been in numerous potential IS solution sales which inevitably became feature or marketing sales when in truth what you really wanted and needed to do is 'sell' the potential customer on a particular vision of an IS strategy that creates the IS demand for your product (and ideally delivers on their business strategy). This ability to move up the food chain may not be within the expertise of the supplier or, as is quite often the case, the potential customer will not engage further up the food chain leaving the IS vacuum (or at best an asymmetry of information) in place thus making it difficult for the sale to be made for the benefit of both parties.

I can't be the only one who has been in such engagements that have fell by the wayside for reasons you just know where due to a lack of knowledge of, access to or permission to work within the IS strategy? When such potential partnerships collapse it is frustrating.

After a few sales and engagements it is entirely possible you do become knowledgeable of the IS strategies your customers have been pursuing and how you supported them. These may be defined strategies, emergent ones on experimenting with your solution or ones driven from your IT supply (features). This can then give an anchor into the next customer as you can start to be more accurate and specific about potential IS demand that should, could or may be important to them. In a sense, your darts become more accurate. It moves you away from the feature-based sale. This is ironic, as what you are doing then, if you're successful, is changing the nature of your sale, as the benefits delivered will slowly move from strategic to key operational within the sector you are selling to. Depending on the sector this could increase demand as it starts to support necessary capabilities for entry or competition.

This then raises the question of whether your solution's position in the application portfolio (Ward & Peppard, 2002) for the sector defines how hard the sale is and the nature of making the sale? It probably does, it's just a matter of how. It also needs a bit more thought. The other thought is whether this experience of selling to clients allows you to build a sort of generic or framework benefits dependency network that can be used as a sales tool? It probably could, but that needs more thought as well.

Always things to ponder.

After two years, to the month,and 37 sessions, the 4E Campaign came to an end on Friday (two days ago). It was a unique experience, most notably because it was a conclusion of a campaign, rather than the conclusion of a period of play which just happens to not have any more sessions. The Buffy campaign had conclusions at the end of season one and two but was expected to go on. The Pendragon Campaign had a great conclusion, but there was a slight, group delusion of it continuing with a new generation at the time. We'd have to go back to the group's first Crescent Sea (3E Campaign) to find a proper finale. This was a proper, emphatic finale on numerous levels.

What the 4E Campaigns reminds me of is the role-playing group is blessed with imaginative, dynamic and mature individuals that embrace change and the new rather than avoid it and have an almost subliminal and preternatural ability to negotiate ideas and riff of each other for the betterment of all. This creates an experience at the table that we take for granted but probably isn't the norm. One of the facets of this heady brew is passion for renewal at the table, we don't just play the same thing continually, we look for something quite different each time, play it with a passion that all but consumes it, and then we move on to something else. The goal this time was to have our own version of the full 4E D&D experience: the full three tiers, levels 1-30, the use of miniatures for a level of tactical play (a major new element for the group) and an epic story that fully mined the potential for a different feel in each tier, ideally with the same characters. Okay, we tweaked the default experience in that we probably extended the authoring power of skill challenges a bit, had different rules for things inside and outside of encounters in the epic tier and we probably averaged a level every one or two sessions, but I'm convinced we got a distilled, injected with awesome, valid 4E experience. It was 4E to the max.

I'm going to take a moment to praise the characters: they were brilliant, if I do say so myself. I'd probably even suggest they were very different characters to what we normally see in our games. They were very unique, prideful, selfish and, in many ways, broken individuals. They were heroes in the classic sense, rather than the modern fictional sense. Heroes because they could make a difference, not because they were entirely altruistically driven to do so. This was intentional, another sign of the group's ability to clue into an idea and max it out. This was further strengthened by the fact this worked, it was always played to strengthen the experience at the table rather than destroy it and this carried on through the whole of the campaign with those attitudes bringing perpetual twilight to the world and us destroying lives and nearly the world while at all times we remained the 'heroes'. How that was balanced by all participants at the table, often in an almost tacit and invisible way, was brilliant, and it created a unique sword and sorcery experience woven through all three tiers. The characters had style, failings, brilliant imagery and just dripped pure awesome. As a composite creation, to blow the groups trumpet a bit, they were fascinating. I fully expect to benefit from this rich and passionate approach to characters in Fading Suns.

Let's face it, final episodes are hard. A Final episode to a two year long campaign that has seen the same protagonists go through three tiers of play each with their own unique feel and who have grown in depth and feel in proportion to that is even harder! Throw in the fact the penultimate episode was a blinder as well (I was influenced emotionally by small parts of the penultimate episode, it was very sad) and it seems almost impossible. The finale was brilliant though. The final miniature-based encounter was great. The final personal encounters before the end of the world worked really well. The big reveal on some new miniatures was strangely exciting. The way we got to define the nature of the next reality as the three remaining heroes, who once could only make petty and selfish power plays in the heroic tier, but who now stood as final arbiters was frickin' awesome by any assessment. Fantastic stuff, all the more powerful for having played through the three tiers and no less powerful despite the fact we knew it was coming! The ultimate indicator of the quality of the finale? It felt done. It felt right. I particularly liked how the three quite different views on the nature of the next reality actually came to be in balance and in agreement at the end. Not in a forced way, but in a natural way that was right for each protagonist and allowed them to be the fantasy equivalent of The Authority defending what they had created in the next reality. That in itself was another sign of the groups ability to subliminally negotiate such issues over time for the strength of all.

Was their some minor issues along the way? Yeah, but none that are serious or worth mentioning again. Indeed, they only got mentioned on here in the first place because I'm fascinated by how these things work rather than them being experience ruining issues. If I was to pick my favourite tiers it would probably be a toss up between the heroic and the epic, but then the middle of things is always difficult, and the paragon tier was one big middle which meant it suffered just slightly against the other two, while having moments that would probably sneak into a top 10 (which I'm not even going to try). I know what would be number one though? The killing of Ashura, the primordial of the sun and life, and the casting of the world into perpetual twilight. I'm not sure superlatives exist to describe that session.

Overall, the whole experience was just fantastic. Unlike many, many gamers who profess that their best gaming is behind them in their early twenties, I'm glad to say this isn't remotely true for me, and that is good.

GM Blog Links:-

• Dead Rising
• Land of the Dead
• The End of Time

Okay, semester four ended two weeks ago and, without a significant break, semester five came around and the cycle begins again. Semester five is different, which is something I probably say each time. The reason it's different this time is I'm back doing a core module, which means 14 units and an exam. I've not done an exam in a year, but I can't say I'm concerned about it. The second intriguing thing is the core module is Managing Information (strategic IS/IT and then statistics) and the elective is Business Transformation, which means it's six months of IS/IT-enabled business transformation.

What's very interesting is it's my home territory. I've been head of IS/IT at an international company and managed IS/IT to enable and drive business transformation. I've also approached things from an external perspective in terms of consultancy engagements supplying IS solutions and associated business transformation. A number of the methods featured in the module are known to me or I recognise the methods I've used in the past as those methods as a product of actual experience (after all, the methods arise for a reason). I read the Benefits Management book some time ago and then again a year or so ago. I've managed an application portfolio within a diverse multifaceted business. I've also ran a number of agile projects.

At times, the MBA isn't about completely new subjects like economics and finance, but about adding a wider perspective and focus on things you already have a very good practitioner grounding in. This is a good thing.

The two modules have different content, but are obviously complementary. They are also very different in how they are assessed. Managing Information is exactly the same as all other core modules: TAA, ECA and then exam. Looking at it, the TAA is a relatively perfunctory question about agile projects. The ECA is a statistics question. This leaves the Benefits Management core of the module for the exam. It seems to me, at the moment, to be a module that can be managed to the assessments. I don't mean I'll trivialise it and study to the assessments only, but it does mean it's clear how to manage your time effectively and not over study. In a way, you can't over study, but I live in the real world of distance learning with a full-time job so it's something you have to consider. It's more expectations management, I guess.

Business Transformation is very different. An elective is normally TAA and then ECA. Business transformation gives this a twist. The ECA is three pieces of work that amounts to an ECA length, which is worth 75% of the final mark. It is suggested you use your own organisation as an example. The remaining 25% is based on contributions online, some of this dictated by continual pieces of 'work' after each unit and an expectations you'll just contribute to the various online resources. The continual pieces of work isn't so much an issue, it just makes the schedule of work a bit more constant which dictates your study schedule. It will be good if the interactive nature of it takes off with the promise of more interactive seminars online and the like.

Anyone who reads this blog will know where I see the issue with the business transformation assessment set-up? The fact the elective seems orientated to being valuable to 'your current organisation' as that is the suggestion in the assessment. I agree, that's a fantastic way to do it, allow the student to apply immediate value from his studies. If you are in the right type of role to maximise that return it is amazingly valuable, especially if it's a new skill for the student. Regrettably, if you're working on contracts or short-term contracts that have a particular focus you don't necessarily have the remit to do such things, as you tend to be applying your breadth of skills to solving a particular thorny, priority or strategic problem. Initial queries suggest you don't have to use your current organisation, but I still need to assess the degree to which this makes the assessment process less...natural.

It's going to be an interesting six months. I've already read a lot of the core text books for the IS/IT and business transformation material, due to natural interest, and it has allowed me to adopt different perspectives on my practitioner orientated skills and experience.

One of the things you have to get 'right' in Fate are the Aspects. The Thrilling Tales informs me this works well both on a supply and demand side, the Aspects act as a way to communicate player demand and certainly facilitate GM supply, often communicating a general direction for the whole campaign with a bit of effort. Basically, it's worth getting it 'right'.

So, they are worth getting right in Fading Suns, and I've put a bit more thought into them this time and synthesized a few ideas.

The diagram above shows how Aspects hang together, it is this structure that allows the player to paint a picture of what is important to the character: who he is and what important things orbit the character in the form of people, places, organisations, ideas, etc. If the character creation process works well, you get good outcomes. The key areas being to ensure you have a good balance between story and situation aspects, as well making sure combinations are used. An aspect can be situational and story driven, or involve a person and an organisation. This is not to say the maximum number of hits should be sort, but at times getting the maximum return from an aspect can involved combining the elements that they are constructed from into one aspect.

All this paints a picture, but it can be a picture that lacks focus. This was certainly the case with Spirit of the Century, the pictures painted were gloriously brilliant, but what was missing was the essential, dramatic conflict the character was dealing with. In a core of cases this could be divined from the aspect portrait, in others the picture painted was a bit more fragmented. It's this I want to change, both because I think the aspects should communicate this anyway, so leaving it to chance seems stupid, and because it works really well in systems like Primetime Adventures (the issue).

As a result, one aspect in Fading Suns will be the issue aspect, it'll be tagged with [I] on the character sheet. It is no different to any other aspect mechanically. It doesn't change the currency, provide a bigger bonus when tagged or invoked or anything. It doesn't even have to be an aspect of any particular type. It is purely a communication mechanism. The aspect will represent the central, dramatic issue the character is dealing with. The reason he exists as a protagonist. The rest of the aspects may represent elements that have lead to this issue or elements that will be involved in its resolution, or neither (though a percentage will always be one or the other in practice). Basically, aspects continue to paint the picture they are supposed to paint but the issue aspect communicates a conflict that gives the mosaic a bit of purpose. As I say, experience tells me this aspect is often on the character sheet anyway, or not on the sheet but implied by a combination of others, so it may as well be made explicit.

What will the in game effect be? It'll serve a similar purpose to Primetime Adventures. It won't mean that every scene is focused on addressing the premise aspect but it will mean the point of that protagonists story, at least for a particular period of time (and the shorter campaigns increase the chance it'll be the issue for the whole campaign), will be weighted towards that aspect and resolving that conflict.

As already mentioned, the Distance Learning programme for the Durham Business School MBA, has been re-named the Global MBA. This isn't a bad thing, it's a better name, it rolls off the tongue and certainly reflects the cohort on the programme at any particular time. I'm also a big fan of being able to do electives via residential study and hope they do more of that even though I'm probably too late in the game to use it to its best advantage.

One of the other ideas that was rumbling in the background when the programme was in transition was the idea that the residential seminars would be longer. Not a bad idea. I've yet to have a bad residential experience and they are certainly one of the best parts of what was the Distance Learning programme. They work because you get to meet other students and discuss ideas. It's great to hear what other people do and how they approach things. The residential seminars were also perfectly placed in the semester process, they sat just at the point in time it was worth considering what might be on the exam and the ECA would have just come out so that could be discussed face-to-face with students and tutors. This is worth remembering, the semester process has a rhythm to it through building blocks like the TAA, residential, an on-line assignment and the ECA. The semester rhythm and the key points of value (the residential and its placement being a main one) is one of the key things you learn in your very first semester.

It would seem the Global MBA won't have residential seminars any more, instead it will have Summer School. Once I'd reduced my expectations involving California beaches and women in bikinis I started to get a handle on the detail. Initially, it wasn't that bad. There is five days worth of on-site activities, albeit one day is dedicated to career development, which isn't a bad thing in my view. Initially it seemed to be a good idea until I realised there is only one summer school in September and that one summer school doesn't match with the release of the ECA. I've had a think about it numerous times and I'm still not convinced this is an improvement to the programme.

One period of residential time is a blow in numerous ways. First, it makes the five days summer school covers a bit of a joke as you're actually losing residential teaching as two residential in a year (one per semester) meant you had six days of residential teaching now you have four (due to the career development day). That's a loss of two days. Second, it comes as double blow as the January to June semester won't have any residential time at all. No asking about the ECA at the residential because it's released on the same weekend (the Monday it finished often enough). There was a reason that happened, I believe, it allowed the distance learning cohort to discuss some ECA generalities with a key lecturer just like the full-time students would (this was particularly effective if you'd tied your studying to the modules on the residential). In a similar the opportunity for face-to-face exam advice and example questions is gone. Third, it's also a triple blow, because even for the July to December semester you can't tie it all up either as the summer school takes place a week or two before the ECA is released. This radically reduces the benefits of the residential component. It was part of the structure of the semester, a process which added a value beyond the some of its parts and allowed for expectations and unknowns to be better managed. Now it's pretty much semester independent and doesn't add any value to the first semester and adds less to the second. Are the business school even aware of how critical the placement of the residential seminar was in the overall flow of the semester? I thought that was the actual point.

I find myself looking at it and being happy I didn't study the four semester I have studied under the summer school structure and I'm a bit frustrated I'll be studying my final two (the third is the dissertation) under this structure. In a way, summer school 2010 will be my last module useful residential component! I just can't fathom the change as a value driven decision. It makes little sense. It seems to be a net dis-benefit for the student on almost every level? I can fathom the value from other angles, but they aren't student centric.

If I'm missing something I'm all for hearing it.

The final ECA has been submitted. Normally this would have happened two weeks ago, but the Strategic Marketing ECA was subject to an extension because of a late release date. That is semester four complete. Another one down. Three more to go. The next one even sees a return to sitting an exam after two semesters without any. In a very strange sort of way, I'm looking forward to it. There is a bit of a focus to things when an exam is looming on the horizon. It's also a focused challenge. It will mean I'll have to move on essays early as I like to have them out of the way before revision.

I'm glad the Strategic Marketing ECA is done, it's been an experience worthy of reality TV show clichés. There are a number of reasons for this. The difficult nature of essays involving 'your organisation or one you are familiar with', the degree to which contexts are superfluous (or not) and the difference between questions with multiple parts and those that are open-ended (essentially involving different levels of directed guidance). The Strategic Marketing essay was the worst of all three.

It basically comes down to the ECA Economics of Scarcity. You have 4,000 words and a very open-ended question. Exactly what elements of the course do you include? How much research do you put into the organisation itself? What if you organisation isn't really appropriate? You never have enough words and quite often the final work is defined as much by what isn't in the text as what is. The usual result for an essay of this type is you are never fully satisfied with what you have produced. The concern is what you've chosen to address in the way you've addressed it isn't agreeable with the individual marking the paper. I don't care what anyone says, I still insist a high degree of individual preference factors into these things. The strategic marketing essay went from me not looking forward to it (not because of the subject, just the framing of the question), to enjoying it and thinking I had it nailed, to coming back down the other side a bit and just wanting it filed and off the agenda.

Currently, I'm in the position of liking the framework I've used to structure the essay but I'd never be able to convince myself I've got the balance of content right in any other area. If this was a truly real world, practical application of what had been learned it'd be a lot clearer and easier as you'd have a practical, commercial objective.

This is one of the 'interesting' things about the MBA: value against marks. I've been satisfied with my marks so far, but it's even occurred to my the value of a module isn't directly correlated to the mark. The study of any particular subject gives you a perspective you didn't have before, or enhances one you did possess. It provides a new way of looking at things and new forms of language. All of which is very valuable. I'm just not convinced those value elements are enhanced with a higher result. Obviously, you've done something right academically, and that's good and all, but I'm not sure getting the highest mark possible translates to necessarily having gotten the most value out of it in a practical way.

The major pain now is I don't have any break between this semester and the next one, which has an official start date of next week. I'm used to finishing the essays before the exams for the most part, which gives me a month before the next start date. This means I do some basic studying and ease into thing gently. Not this time, the clock is ticking just as the current one has wound down.

Saying that, I have read a substantial amount of the core textbooks in next semesters modules, so it's possibly not that bad.

I love the cinematic spy genre. If I have one genre that sits in the back of my mind that tasks me to nail it at the gaming table, it's cinematic spies. I may have moved on to the extent I never actually address the itch, but it exists nevertheless (it may also have merged with grand, contemporary, commercial fiction). This is why Just Cause 2 intrigued me. Hell, the original intrigued me but it got mediocre reviews. Just Cause 2 got good reviews, so the experiment with a sandbox cinematic spy game began a number of weeks back.

The cinematic spy stuff is pretty good, in that it is cinematic to the point of being super heroic. The tools of the trade are the fancy grappling hook and the magically available parachute. In terms of the parachute, this mean you can leap from cliffs, helicopters and planes and free fall like an epic action hero and use the parachute to make sure you don't die. The grappling hook verges on being a superpower. Basically, you shoot it, it grapples and then it'll pull you to that point. This means you can 'fly' from building to building, up walls and between vehicles or even up to a helicopter only to pull out the pilot and start firing on the enemy. The only limitation is its reach. I've already made my way up a super casino, grappling hooked between the towers, took over a helicopter and been in a car chase that involved grappling hooking between vehicles, shooting out tires and whatever else. It does feel very cinematic, which is good.

A clear achievement of the game so far is the island of Panau itself. It is 400 square miles of gorgeous Pacific island(s) containing jungles, towns, a city, snowy mountains, ski resorts, a Vegas-style casino and military bases. It looks absolutely fantastic and stretches out as 'far' as the eye can see. This is particularly true when looking out to the horizon from a great height, such as when being at the top of said casino. The realisation of Panau is critical as it spurs you to engage with the sandbox-style and get out and see what's out there. As an example, I spotted a very expensive looking speed boat, got in it and travelled to a location out in the sea. It proved to be a government oil rig, so much chaos ensued as I started to infiltrate the facility. It then gets pretty dynamic. Government troops show up so I takeover the boat they came in and start shooting out key parts of the rig with the gun emplacements. The giant crane on the rig proves to be too much for any weapon I can acquire so I had a think. This ended up with me using a boat to go to the Panau Airport, jumping on top of a 747, riding it into the sky, then taking it over and ramming the 747 into the rig to take out the giant crane. The world just feels in motion and you can use it to enable your super spy awesome. You can ride a 747 like a horse into the sky? Totally ridiculous, but it does fit into the established, True Lies-like milieu that the game is set in.

The structure of the actual game seems to be a combination of agency missions, faction missions and generating chaos (your reward for sandbox destruction). You increase your influence with the factions on the island by working for them as a freelance operative, which gets you close to your final objective somehow, not fully sure how yet. I assume it destabilises the government. This also gives you chaos. You can also earn chaos by destroying things, often government facilities, such as the oil rig already mentioned. When your chaos total ticks over a certain level another agency mission will become available which is the 'main plot'. In a way, the model isn't about earning a currency (chaos) to gain more levels and personal power in order to access more content (the traditional RPG / MMMO model), the currency just unlocks content directly at a certain level. You can still get more powerful, but this is done by finding caches of stuff as you undertake the various activities which can upgrade weapons and armour, etc. It seems to be a sound model. Interestingly, it seems a bit less scripted than GTA IV, which is both a good and bad thing.

The main problem I've encountered so far is how the persistence works and the checkpoint system. In the few missions I've done so far, especially the faction one, once I'd started it I had to finish it and the only checkpoint seemed to be at the point the mission was given to me. This meant you could get to the final moments of the mission, only to die, and you'd have to do it from the very beginning. This can be a bit frustrating. In this model anything you've destroyed seemed to be reset, as far as I can tell. You can also be between missions, and I've not fully figured out how the persistence works here. At one point I died causing chaos on the oil rig, loaded the game from the last checkpoint and the rig was still damaged. When I did it a bit later I went to the rig and it was an unknown location and totally undamaged. A bit weird. I'm sure it's consistent in some way I've just not figured it out yet or I did something differently. It may be related to the difference between recovering from checkpoints and saves. I'll have to experiment.

It's a good game. Like most sandbox experiences I don't find them as engaging as a more narratively focused experience, but it's pretty exciting doing all the super spy stuff around the island and I've only visited a ridiculously small percentage of it. It feels like a real place. I suspect there is a repetitious element to it, possibly around mission variability, but it's working out fine so far as a game that allows you just to disengage your brain a bit and experiment.

There was a period of time, probably some way through semester three (July to December 2009) up to and including the residential seminar for semester four (January to June 2010) in March , when those on the MBA Programme via Distance Learning were wondering what was going on. Things just seemed to be getting slightly sloppy and confused. It was also annoying that we seemed to be suffering a reduced elective set due to old ones being taken away and new ones taking a while to come on stream. There was also staff exits and the like. There was certainly reasons to wonder what was going on and an undercurrent of complaint was in the air.. At the residential seminar for semester four we heard about the expansion of the Distance Learning implementation of the MBA programme to allow us to do residential study in the Caribbean and a few other carrots that seemed a bit muddled.

All great, but I'm unlikely to spend a grand to do my residential component abroad at this time. Now, things are becoming clearer though, the Distance Learning Programme has been re-branded the Global MBA. The three delivery methods now being MBA Full-Time, Executive MBA and the Global MBA. The Global MBA is the distance learning option, named global because of the global nature of its student base, which is certainly true. Now, if this was a renaming alone, designed to avoid the distance learning moniker, I'd be as cynical as the next man, but it does look like some new options are coming on stream.

The main area of interest is a more blended programme between distance learning and full-time. In 2011 they are offering residential elective modules, essentially taught programmes. As far as I can tell, this means 3-4 days of on-site classes and then an essay to be completed within four weeks of the course finishing. This costs the same as studying for an elective via the distance learning method. I have a few concerns on the idea, such as whether 3-4 days is enough time to cover an elective? It may well be, as that's 2-3 units a day, and they probably do hit them hard and fast on the full-time MBA? After all, you have to get all the course into a year on the full-time delivery method. In fact, I think the students on the residential electives are signed up Global MBA students and individuals on the Executive MBA studying part-time (on-site). These on-site classes are delivered in Durham, Frankfurt and the Caribbean.

This is a great idea. In fact, it's so great I wish it had been part of the programme since I joined. As a student, with only three semesters left, and one of those being the dissertation, I'm not in a perfect position to take full advantage of it. I only have one elective left to select, since I'm studying the fifth (of six) in the form of business transformation next semester (July to December 2010). I could squeeze one of these residential electives in, but that would mean studying Managing Social Marketing Campaigns as my sixth elective. I'm not sure about that. It has significant applicability if I remain in the public sector, but I'd have to think about it. The advantage of doing it this way? It provides more face-to-face time with people on the Global and Executive MBA programmes, which is always a good thing. It also gets an elective done via what, I presume, is a more intense method. It depends what other new electives come on stream for 2011, if a new one comes up that is very interesting I'd probably still take that over the current residential option.

Still, this is a magnificent addition to the programme, without a doubt. As I say, it's so good I really wish it had been an option a year or so ago as, being so close to Durham.

I'm currently working to push the social network envelope in order to cast a wider net. The reason being I'm starting to gear up its importance in terms of job hunting. It's early days, and I've got a number of tasks on the agenda, such as changing my Linkedin profile, but I have to make the job hunt more personal and social networks are one way to break down barriers.

The main focus has been Linkedin, which has the advantage of being professional and career orientated. The disadvantage is it can be unfocused due to the global nature of the site. The initial goal is to increase the size of my network and follow that through via raising my profile across the board and with individuals.

In the first instance, I'm trying to connect with as many people on the Global MBA Programme as I can. This makes sense, one of the advantages of doing the MBA is the connections you form. It also has another advantage in that it increases the weight and respectability of your profile. When applying for certain jobs seeing that your connections on Linkedin are all relatively high profile people in roles across the globe is a good thing. It shows that you have a wide, well informed perspective. It's also good if that is actually true, which it is, as I've been enriched and enhanced by many of these people and I assume that same is true in reverse. In short, the connections on Linkedin are part of your personal brand and a tool to market your suitability for certain positions. I suspect it can also work in reverse, should you be applying for a 'between roles' sort of job, but you can't have everything.

I'm also joining groups. Groups have two advantages. The obvious advantage is the groups are orientated around topics so you'll find individuals interested in those topics as members of the groups. This gives you a chance to discuss ideas and get your name out there. Again, this is mixed. The global nature of the site means this can be bit unfocused and a scatter shot approach. Still, discussion is good just for your own sanity as it rounds out ideas and gives you a wider perspective on topics. It can also be enlightening and a confidence boost. Certain groups work for the brand as well, showing what you're interested in, that you think in a certain way (say strategic IS/IT groups) or have reached a certain level (such as CIO groups). The real advantage of joining groups is the people who you share groups with can be connected with, since 'in the same group as' is a connection option that means you don't need to request a referral or know their e-mail address (which sort of defeats the point). This means groups are good, join the ones related to your areas of expertise and the ones that represent how you want to be perceived. Use them to form new connections.

It's then about your Linkedin network, the people you connect to through others, specifically those in your second tier. At the moment, I have 103 connections and 11,700+ one step removed. In truth, that's probably not that large compared to career networkers, but it's a start. This has an exponential effect, as an example, the extended MBA cohort are involved in certain roles and connect with others in similar roles further magnifying the level of individuals you are connected with. This can also come down to key individuals, as some people on your first tier might have roles that are related to filling interim executive and C level roles, they in turn have those people as connections. It's undoubtedly useful in both an active and passive way.

Now, all your connections work for companies. This can be good for discovering companies that you weren't aware of which you may want to contact in some way and see if you can sell yourself to them. That's probably a lot harder than it used to be, but in this day and age, it's probably worth a shot as jobs don't get to the job market and in some SME cases they might not advertise for a role they decide exists when a 'candidate' presents it to them. That's my theory anyway. This takes some work, as it means mining your connections for those companies and then researching them a bit. I've not done that extensively yet, but the odd one has caught my eye. It's an information source and a pretty good one.

Even ignoring the whole role hunting effort, you can call on these connections, ask them questions and engage in discussion with them. It's a no lose situation.

I'm probably going to change my profile a bit. At the moment I think it has too many achievements on it which tends to say a lot. This can be a good and bad thing. I've come to the conclusion it probably says too much considering people do check it during the application process. This can give another perspective that may compromise your targeted CV. The Linkedin profile exists to be checked and it can only be targeted in one, fixed way. As a result, I'm going to take the achievements out and focus the profile on the brand I want to communicate as a default. I'm going to do this via focusing on branding and selling the roles accurately without specific achievements in order to paint a picture of me. I don't see many significant CV-lke achievements on Linkedin profiles, if any. I suppose I see it like this, the achievements feel like a sell on function, I want to market myself based on a brand of experience and position myself appropriately. It's going to be a selling document, but different to a CV. I just need to find the time to sit down and do it. It's a bit of an art form.

The idea being connections, personal brand and personal sell all paint the desired picture.

I'm also trying to use Twitter, but I've not found the best way to use it yet. The trouble with Twitter is it just isn't very targeted. It's essentially you sending your voice out into the void. You can follow people, but they don't necessarily have to follow you. Still, it can be a good a way to get known by and have conversations with people. The difficulty is bringing Twitter down to the local level. One improvement in this area is the 'creation' of the #'NEFollowers tag by a North East (UK) business. It's early days, but I'm hoping I can use this to communicate with people following the tag in the region and forge some more targeted, local connections. The problem might be these businesses are micro-companies, which is fine in itself, but I'm probably hoping to target a bit more towards the SME level. I may be wrong, I've done the micro-company thing, it does have some advantages.

Ultimately, I feel like I'm a skilled resource, a pretty significant social asset, who wants to live and work in the region and I need to try and pro-actively sell that. We shall see how it goes. If it all fails, I'll have still extended my network and talked to interesting people, which is a good thing. That in itself is worthwhile.

I've been a bit remiss lately when it comes to talking about the 4E Campaign, I suspect the sheer audacity and awesome of plunging the world into perpetual twilight due to killing the God of the Sun and Life shocked me into silence. It probably was the moment of the campaign so far, as if we'd been building to it for 30 sessions. It was that great the risk is it was the top of the hill and we've reached the downward slope and are running headlong into to the finale in one big epilogue.

That's not a bad risk to face though, probably a pretty cool one.

We've had some excellent encounters, but again too many really to describe in detail. The best encounters have all involved something else going on, such as the Dragonborn Imperial City being destroyed by city ships while we personally battled the Dragonborn Emperor (our first 1000+ hp enemy). We also had a battle to secure the ancient, Primordial destroying weapon known as the Void Star, which was on a timer as the enemy tried to escape with it. It makes the fights exciting as there is an objective above and beyond taking the enemies down. Like anything, I suspect this would get a bit boring if used all the time, but when it's come up so far it's always worked very well. Plus, you can't beat being faced with the enemy actually succeeding in getting away with the God destroying super weapon, and your reserve strategy to 'destroy' the power source having failed! Oh wait, the Rangers cat is within striking distance of the final power node in the final round, and mauls and scores. Classic stuff.

One great scene seemed to be influenced by Kill Bill, as the Dragonborn Empire and Imperial Palace (featured in Rise of the Dragon God and Rise of the Dragon God II) was based on ancient China. The scene was between my character and his estranged sister, which was like the battle between The Bride and O-Ren Ishi in an oriental garden. All it needed was snow. It had two quick, agile and accurate characters in a potential fight to lethal death. What made it more interesting was the use of skill challenges. At the start of every round a skill roll could be made on one of my trained skills providing a benefit to me (if I succeeded) or my sister (if I failed). What was more interesting about the skills, is they provided a bit of colour, narrative excuse, or however you want to describe it, to push verbal interchanges building up to the reveal when I won the skill challenge (or she reached bloodied status). It meant the encounter went in interesting directions, better than just a straight fight, as I spent the first few rounds using stealth to try and persuade her she needed to take a different course. It meant it was a fight, but also had an air of a lightsaber duel in the sense it was about the verbal interchanges as much as getting medieval. It was a good use of setting, colour and rules I thought. Probably one of the best use of skill challenges.

The character progression is also interesting, if a bit distorted, since we only exist at any particular level for a single session. The characters are becoming quite specialised. My character, Artemis, now seems to be able to cause damage in the multiple hundreds with encounter powers, never mind daily powers, and he has numerous ways to get encounter powers back! In the last few fights I've never even had to open up with the daily powers and one of them does 8W! Morn is the ultimate defender, keeping things to him and boggling smashing them into status effect delirium and Azhanti provides essential healing and power magnifying powers as well as essential, non-friendly fire AOE. It works really well. The encounters have potentially got a bit harder to predict due to the number of powers and the extreme edge cases of the character abilities. How do you account for a character gaining a power that allows him to shoot everything on the battlefield in one round? Works well to, I cleared virtually the whole field of minions with it and caused about 50 damage to each non-minion. We may also be experiencing a slight superhero problem in that Morn is very tough, while my character is a glass canon. It makes me curious how things would play if we were playing in the tier for longer with many sessions and encounters at each level.

Basically, I'm loving the Epic Tier. One of the main reasons is the pace is more to my liking. It's back to the dramatic speed of the heroic tier, which is working well. It's all too easy to think it would be good to enjoy the awesome for a bit longer, but I suspect the tipping point that sees it getting a bit mundane and less unique is never far away.

After all, it can become a bit laboured being this awesome all of the time!

GM Blog Links:-

• Rise of the Dragon God pt II
• Rise of the Machines
• The Earthshaker Wakes

When we purchased the PS3 this put us in the market for Blu-Ray discs. Personally, I wasn't in that much of a rush, as any remotely modern DVD tends to look absolutely fantastic when played through an Xbox or PS3 anyway due to the upscaling. Not so long ago we also moved to a 42” TV, and we've been very happy with that, the image quality and the colours being particularly impressive. It was inevitable we would purchase a Blu-Ray disc eventually.

A few days ago Louise got Lost Boys on Blu-Ray and we watched it yesterday.

I was surprised by the experience as I didn't see Lost Boys as a prime candidate for sampling HD. I actually found it enthralling. It was the image quality, specifically the level of detail and the richness of the colours. The only way to describe it is sumptuous. It just pulled you in. It transforms things you've even seen before. The coastal town of Santa Carla looks totally different in all the montage shots, just richer, more real and as a result the vibe of the place and how that influences the film just comes across better. The same is true of other locations, such as the comic shop the Frog brothers work at, you can literally read all the detail on all the comics in the background, it adds a level of vibrancy that just isn't present on a DVD.

What was very interesting is I've always assumed the best candidates for HD are big scale films, historical epics, science fiction blockbusters and action films, and while I'm sure they are perfect candidates, I'm also thinking slower, more intimate films may actually be one of the bigger winners of the HD format assuming they ever get made. The slower, close-up scenes during which a lot depended on facial expression and actors maintaining eye contact with each other or the camera just get a major boost and, again, that's in a film that isn't overly intense in this regard. I'm thinking some sort of claustrophobic film that survives off the intense, close-up performances of the actors and the atmosphere of its location could really win out on HD.

We're not going to suddenly purchase a glut of Blu-Ray discs, but I can see them rising up the agenda a bit.