Christopher Hyde Reihenfolge der Bücher

An unexpected take on how games work, what the stakes are for them, and how game designers can avoid the traps of optimization. The process of optimization in games seems like a good thing—who wouldn’t want to find the most efficient way to play and win? As Christopher Paul argues in Optimizing Play, however, optimization can sometimes risk a tragedy of the commons, where actions that are good for individuals jeopardize the overall state of the game for everyone else. As he explains, players inadvertently limit play as they theorycraft, seeking optimal choices. The process of developing a meta, or the most effective tactic available, structures decision making, causing play to stagnate. A “stale” meta then creates a perception that a game is solved and may lead players to turn away from the game. Drawing on insights from game studies, rhetoric, the history of science, ecology, and game theory literature, Paul explores the problem of optimization in a range of video games, including Overwatch, FIFA/EA Sports FC, NBA 2K, Clash Royale, World of Warcraft, and League of Legends. He also pulls extensively from data analytics in sports, where the problem has progressed further and is even more intractable than it is in video games, given the money sports teams invest to find an edge. Finally, Paul offers concrete and specific suggestions for how games can be developed to avoid the trap set by optimization run amok.

Paul charts the appeal of free-to-play games and examines how they challenge dominant game industry norms--

The U.S. Marine Corps and joint concepts and thinking increasingly emphasize the role of information in military operations-from maintaining situational awareness to influencing adversary decisionmaking and understanding the behaviors of noncombatant populations. At the same time, wargaming is enjoying renewed prominence in the defense community as a tool to explore potential future conflicts and shape strategy. Yet, the information environment (IE) remains underdeveloped and underrepresented in wargames, both in the Marine Corps and across the U.S. Department of Defense. An examination of requirements, principles from military theory, current doctrine, and commercial gaming practices points to solutions and changes to game mechanics to better incorporate information considerations into wargame planning, development, and play in ways that can be customized according to available resources, capabilities, and goals. Recommendations target wargame sponsors, wargame designers, and those who are responsible for procuring new tools and recruiting personnel to support wargaming. Operations in the IE play a role across the spectrum of conflict, and their effects and consequences extend beyond the IE. As the nature of conflict changes, it is critical that wargames reflect realities on the ground, supporting forces in using and defending against increasingly important information-based tools of warfare.

Ex-army ranger turned historian John Holliday is in search for the truth behind the ancient and deadly Templar order. Putting their lives in danger, Holliday and his good friend Eddie once again travel the world on the trail of a deadly Templar plot.

Retired Army Ranger turned historian John Holliday has thwarted the plots of Rex Deus, the twenty-first-century incarnation of the Templars, all over the world. Now, the lost journal of explorer Percy Fawcett leads Holliday deep into the South American jungles on a quest to uncover the greatest mystery of the Middle Ages . . . Trailed by an infamous tomb raider and menaced by a tribe of hostile natives, Holliday and his crew uncover a five-hundred-year-old society hidden in the cauldron of the Amazon. Descendants of the Templar Knights, they exist for one reason: to hide and protect the holy artefact taken from the original Temple of Jerusalem by the first Templars: the legendary Ark of the Covenant. Will Holliday's obsession with the truth finally kill him?

After nearly losing his life in Africa, retired Army Ranger and historian John Holliday is ready for some R&R back in the U.S. But when a disheveled Russian called Genrikhovich intercepts him in the airport, Holliday's homecoming will have to wait. Genrikhovich claims to know of a long-lost sword called Aos-the companion to Holliday's own Templar sword. Holliday quickly finds himself on a flight to Turkey, where he begins following a trail that will lead him to the dark heart of Russia-where the ancient Templar Order has secretly wielded power for centuries...

From New York Times bestselling author Paul Christopher comes an international thriller delving into a Templar threat right at America’s doorstep. Retired Army Ranger John Holliday and his friend Eddie travel to Cuba in search of Eddie’s mysteriously vanished brother—and find themselves desperately trying to stop a shocking plot of a secret Templar cabal that has been growing for five hundred years. As the conspiracy tightens the corrupt and dying Castro regime in an iron grip, Holliday must find Eddie’s brother before it is too late…and the secret horror of what lies in the Valley of Death is revealed.

In Rome, the public assassination of the Pope by a sniper on Christmas Day sets off a massive investigation that stretches across the globe. But behind the veil of Rex Deus - the Templar cabal that silently wields power in the twenty-first century - the plot has only just begun.