GALERIA FOTOGRAFICA

Todas las fotos de familia, amigos y eventos realizados por los grupos al cual pertenesco estan en este segmento...

viernes, 29 de marzo de 2019

13 Best Highest Paying URL Shortener Sites to Earn Money Online

  1. LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
    One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
    • Payout for 1000 views-$16
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
    • Payment time-daily basis

  2. CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
    You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
    • Payment time-daily

  3. Short.pe: Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere.
    You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-20% for lifetime
    • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
    • Payment time-on daily basis

  4. Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
    You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
    • Payout for 1000 views-$7
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payout method-Paypal
    • Payout time-daily

  5. Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
    • Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
    • Minimum Withdrawal: $5
    • Referral Commission: 30%
    • Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
    • Payment Time: Daily

  6. Linkrex.net: Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc.
    You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$14
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
    • Payment time-daily

  7. Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
    It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
  8. Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
    The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
    • Minimum payout-$10
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
    • Payment-on the daily basis

  9. Shrinkearn.com: Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites.
    Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.
    • The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment methods-PayPal
    • Payment date-10th day of every month

  10. Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
    It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
  11. Cut-win: Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate.
    You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$10
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-22%
    • Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
    • Payment time-daily

  12. Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
    With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
    • Payout for every 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
    • Payout options-PayPal and Payza

  13. BIT-URL: It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views.
    You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
    • Minimum payout-$3
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
    • Payment time-daily

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One Piece World Seeker Save Game

One Piece World Seeker PC/Steam Save Game


One Piece World Seeker is an upcoming action-adventure video game based on the manga and anime series One Piece. Developed by Ganbarion and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, the game will be the first video game in the franchise to feature an open world environment.


One Piece World Seeker Save Game Info:

Learn All Skills
Complete All Main Missions
Complete All Side Missions (Save Update)
Reach Pirate Rank 100 (Save Update)
100% Karma Completion (Save Update)


One Piece World Seeker Save Game Installation:

1. Back up your original save data, in case something wrong happen you can revert to your old data

2. Extract "One Piece World Seeker Save Game.rar" using WinRar

3. Copy save folder to: "C:\Users\❓❓❓\AppData\Local\BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment\ONE PIECE WORLD SEEKER\Saved\SaveGames\"


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Final Fantasy 6 Review

From Guest blogger Helen Davis

Final Fantasy 6, or known as 3 in North America, is one of the greatest RPGs of all time. It  certainly ranks high on the nostalgia factor, and many iconic moments in Final Fantasy history are portrayed in this game. An unforgettable cast of characters, top-notch graphics for the time, a stunning soundtrack and an intriguing storyline keep the player hooked till the very end.  How does it hold up from a Christian perspective?



Very well, actually.  Though there are some moments that are questionable, mainly that one of the final bosses is based on the Virgin Mary, the plot throughout the game more than makes up for it.  Unlike FF9, which views souls as recyclable and life as meaningless, FF6 seems to incorporate more of the biblical worldview, or at least, not anti-biblical. Many of the characters face losses but deal with them in ways that are more consistent with Scripture—Locke feels remorse over the death of his first love, Rachel, believing he couldn't protect her.   He resolves his guilt at the end and decides to move onto his new love. Cyan loses his wife and child and is nearly destroyed, but receives his courage back, believing he must move on and leave the past in the past.  He later becomes a powerful asset to the party, although the Dreamscape sequence in the World of Ruin with Cyan is somewhat creepy. Celes tries to commit suicide after the loss of her only family member, but regains her courage and gathers the party back together.  Though the reason why she should not commit suicide is not addressed, the fact that she is able to recover, move on, and reunite the party shows why we should not. 


The star of the show, though, I feel is Terra. Terra is, in many ways, quite similar to Christ. First of all, her Japanese name, Tina, is actually a shortening of Christina, a feminine form of Christ's name. She is also half human and half esper, and bridges the gap between them, much like Jesus bridges the gap between God and man.  Terra also desires to learn what love is, and finds it not in a carnal way, but in protecting the children in Mobliz. Terra is also unjustly accused and persecuted during the course of the game. At the end, Terra even offers to sacrifice herelf for the party, but remains on earth as a human, in a somewhat interesting parallel to Christ's resurrection. 

Those who begrudge Final Fantasy females such as Aeris and Rinoa should look to Terra and Celes. Both women are strong female protagonists that overcome personal and exterior difficulties to emerge as leaders, Terra in the first half and Celes in the second.  Both are amazing women that complement each other and even form a friendship.

Kefka is also an interesting counterpart to Satan. Saying he wants to destroy all and create a monument to nonexistence is exactly what Satan wishes to do—in Jesus's words 'the thief comes but to steal, kill and destroy.' What words better sum up Kefka Palazzo?  The first scene of him shows him 'destroying' Terra's innocence and ordering her to 'kill kill kill!' The second scene has Kefka 'stealing' General Leo's authority over the Doman mission, killing many with poision, and 'destroying' Cyan's life. His horrors do not end here, as in the interlude on the Floating Continent, Kefka commands the warring triad to strike down Emperor Gestahl so Kefka can rule- an allegory to Satan trying to usurp God. Kefka is later known as destruction and seems to be completely evil with no redeeming qualities, unlike villians such as Golbez or Sephiroth, who at least showed remorse or motive.

The end of the game shows the cast finding joy in spite of the fact the world is nearly dead. Terra has found love. Locke and Celes have found each other. Cyan carries his family inside of him. Gau has his friends. Sabin and Edgar have each other. Setzer has his dream After threatening to destroy  all their dreams and hopes, Terra counters that life continues and that it's not the end result of life that matters, but the day to day joys of life and love. 

Is FF6 perfect? No. But in comparison to the poison of FF7's recyclable souls and FF9's 'our memories live on', it's a breath of fresh air. Highly recommended.

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jueves, 28 de marzo de 2019

McCarthyism In Hollywood (Part One)

"The Blacklist was a time of evil and no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil."
- Dalton Trumbo
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McCarthyism
The Hollywood blacklist of the late 1940s and 50s can be regarded as one of the most important and far reaching consequences of the Cold War climate that the United States emerged from after the Second World War. Maltby is in agreement with this assessment and claims that 'no adequate history of the Cold War in the America can be written without reference to the blacklist' (1981: 76).E vidently it is necessary to consider the implications of the communist witch hunts of the film industry when documenting the Cold War; to ignore it is to dismiss perhaps the best examples of the fear that communism had on America during the period. It's important to analyse the reasons for the establishment of the House of Un American Activities Committee (HUAC), how their pursuit of suspected communists, as well as the 'Red Scare' period in general, led to a change in Hollywood output, how the committee's influence began to recede and ultimately to explore the various examples of why and how these events divided so many actors, directors and screenwriters; resulting in a period that has been described as 'a dark watershed in American cultural history' (McGilligan, 2012: xiii). 

Although Senator Joseph McCarthy was not in any way involved in the HUAC hearings themselves (Reynolds, 2010:2) , the word 'McCarthyism' can be said to be the term that epitomises the period under discussion. Existing historiography leans towards the view that what has been coined as the 'McCarthy era' encompasses many themes that found their way into several Hollywood films of the time; tropes such as hysteria, paranoia and conformity to name just a few. Schrecker says that the 'entertainment industry's blacklist was one of the most visible sanctions of the McCarthy era' (2001:93) while other film historians such as Fitzgerald observe that both HUAC and Senator McCarthy used similar tactics which consisted of 'bullying witnesses and making charges without evidence to back up their statements' (2007: 26) Quite simply, the definition of McCarthism: 'the act of making accusations of disloyalty, especially of pro-communist activity' (Oxford Dictionary) is relevant to any discussion involving HUAC or the Red Scare in general. The word does not just associate itself with the Wisconsin senator who gave it a name, but also the 'most widespread and longest lasting wave of political repression in American history.' (Schrecker, 1998: x).

As a result of the Wall Street crash in 1929, many on the left believed that capitalism, as the Soviets had predicted, was crumbling' , consequently this 'added to the appeal' of communism. Certainly those in the film industry, many of whom grew up during the depression, were fascinated by the either the 'aesthetic of Soviet films or by the cultural sophistication of Soviet politics' (Buhle, 1999: xiv). The director Elia Kazan, arguably the individual most synonymous with the HUAC investigations, briefly joined the communist party at this time as he felt 'menaced' by both the crash and the ever growing power of Hitler; with the communist party itself claiming to 'have a cure for depressions and Fascism' (1952) it is evident that it appealed to young idealists who were suffering through poverty. Kazan himself commented on the prevalence of the party at this time, saying that communists were indeed in 'a lot of organisations - unseen - unrecognised - unbeknownst to anybody' (1952).

Ninotchka HUAC
Despite the appeal during the early depression years, Chafe argues that from a general western perspective, by the mid 1930s, suspicion and alienation of communism had once again prevailed when there seemed to be little basis for 'distinguishing between Soviet tyranny and Nazi totalitarianism' (1997: 31) after the purges carried out by Stalin. Hollywood too responded to the drab perception at the time, the film Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939) satirically ridiculed Stalinism's 'heartlessness and repression' (Mindich, 1990: 11) and was consequently even banned in the Soviet Union. It depicted a group of Soviets visiting Paris who become allured by capitalism; surprised for example even at the fact that hotels have maids and waiters compared to their own evidently bleak experiences in Russia in which they have to settle for hotels "where you press for the hot water and cold water comes and when you press for cold water, nothing comes at all". At first the Soviet envoy (Greta Garbo) is depicted as cold, heartless and emotionally deprived person who even questions the "social injustice" of a porter being forced to carry other peoples bags, but she soon embraces the west and falls in love with a man, Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas) who when she first meets him describes him as a "unfortunate product of a doomed culture". Strada states that Leon and Ninotchka share what the Soviets and westerners were never able to achieve in the 1930s: 'a strong lasting relationship.' (1997: 2).

Truman's need to pursue a stand against a communist threat abroad was dictated by first clearing out the subversives that existed within America because it appeared to be the 'logical parallel' (Leffler, 1995: 55). HUAC 'fed on the public anxiety regarding the condition of the postwar world' (Stranda & Troper: 61) in their early investigations; the chairman J. Parnell Thomas definitely abided by this view when he explained the reasons why the committee was undertaking its investigation of the Hollywood film industry:


"The motion-picture industry represents what is probably the largest single vehicle of entertainment for the American public. It is the very magnitude of the scope of the motion-picture industry which makes this investigation so necessary. With such vast influence over the lives of American citizens as the motion-picture industry exerts, it is not unnatural that subversive and undemocratic forces should attempt to use this medium for Un-American purposes." 

Put simply; the cinema allowed the writers and directors of Hollywood to control a medium that reached millions of American people every day, they effectively had influence over a form of communication that they could easily infuse with communist propaganda in an effort to undermine American policy. Freedland points out that Thomas is, in this instance, taking advantage of the new television age that was occurring, claiming that 'he had been given a valuable new present tied up with blue ribbon' (2009: 29). Which puts forth the question of whether Thomas is over estimating the risk of subversives within Hollywood to create a climate of fear since many of the testimonies themselves were televised and were thus able to scare those in the film industry who may have been watching.

Despite this, the status of HUAC was given justification by J. Edgar Hoover, who's testimony to HUAC has been described as 'unprecedented' (Schrecker, 2001: 126) since he rarely appeared in front of such committees; in it he pointed out that in 1917 when the communists overthrew the Russian Government, there was one communist for every 2,277 persons in Russia, 'but in the United States today there is one communist for every 1,814 persons in the country.' (Hoover, 1947) Whatever the misgivings about the whole process under discussion, it is fair to say that Hoover is in this instance showing great skill in vindicating HUAC by using past events to portray the increased perils and simultaneous power of communism in the modern world. His stature and alleged expertise ensured that the views he expressed received wide circulation.

Regardless, what this source suggests is that HUAC wanted to simply stop anti- American messages finding their way into pictures, but this intention was to be attacked by Roffman who dismisses that this was ever the intention of HUAC, instead believing that 'the committee was not so interested in the subversive content of movies as in the political affiliations and activities of the people who made the movies.' (2010: 180). The extent of the paranoia that existed within the committee is evident in HUAC's assumption that being a former member of the communist party automatically meant that screenwriters and directors were ready and willing to infuse their pictures with pro-Soviet messages to undermine America.

According to Cauty, what most enraged the conservatives in congress was Hollywood's unabashed 'love affair' with Russia during the war (1978: 490). The existence of world war propaganda pictures, that promoted Soviet relations, came under immediate attack in the first HUAC hearings since they became to look 'more sinister than silly' (Whitfield, 1996: 128) to the committee. One such picture that came under attack was Mission to Moscow (Curtiz, 1943); about a U.S ambassador sent to Russia and learning about the honourable methods of the Soviet system, the intention of which was to apparently 'woo Stalin and the Soviet Union' (Bennet, 2001: 490). In defense of himself and the film; Jack Warner assured the committee of the following:

"If making Mission to Moscow in 1912 was a subversive activity, then the American Liberty ships which carried food and guns to Russian allies were likewise engaged in subversive activities. The picture was made only to help a desperate war effort a nd not for posterity"

HUAC's inability to take into account the historical context in which pictures were made is an early indication of their unjust methods of investigation. Despite the efforts of the Committee for the First Amendment to defend them, anti-communist fever had the American public 'mesmerised' (Gladchuck, 2009: 3) at this time and consequently HUAC emerged out of the first hearings with a list of ten 'unfriendly witnesses' consisting of writers, producers and directors - referred to as the 'Hollywood ten'. Although they pleaded the First Amendment; their right to free association, they were found guilty of refusing to reveal their political affiliations, Sibley states that 'the humiliation, prosecution and loss of employment they suffered far outweighed their crime' (1998: 39). Critchlow states that the 1947 hearings were a shambles in terms of their treatment of witnesses yet HUAC was able to convince the American public who were listening on their radios and watching on their televisions, of the witnesses 'repulsive' (2013: 77) behaviour, yet again strengthening the position of the committee.

To accompany the blacklisting of the ten workers, HUAC produced the Waldorf Statement in which they stated that they 'deplore' the actions of the Hollywood Ten and the industry were not to re-employ them. Although they assured people in this statement that they were going to work in order to reduce creating a climate of fear in their future investigations, Roffman states that in fact 'just an atmosphere was created' (2010: 181) upon HUAC's return to Hollywood in 1951; a year in which the Rosenbergs were put on trial, the Korean War was occurring and anti-communist feeling was 'as strong as ever.' (Freedland, 2009: 19) HUAC's investigations were to have an overwhelming influence on individuals employed in Hollywood as well as impacting on the content of the pictures that were released after 1947 and into the 1950s. Gladchuck argues that this influence was not because of the committees 'shared political acumen but because the atmosphere surrounding the investigation had become ripe for such a venture,' (2009: 9) it was clear McCarthyism would have an intense hold upon one of the biggest and most influential film industries in the world.

References

Bennett, Todd 'Culture, Power, and Mission to Moscow: Film and Soviet-American Relations during World War II', The Journal of American History, 88 (2001)

Caute, David, The Great Fear: The Anti Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower (London, 1978)

Chafe, William, The Unfinished Journey: America Since 1945, (Oxford, 1997).

Maltby, Richard, Made for Each Other: The Melodrama of Hollywood and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Manchester, 1981)

McGilligan, Patrick and Buhle, Peter, Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist (Minneapolis, 2012)

Roffman, Peter and Purdy, Jim, 'The Red Scare in Hollywood: HUAC and the End of an Era', in Steven Mintz and Randy Roberts (eds) Hollywood's America: Twentieth Century America Through Film, (Oxford, 2010)

Kazan, Elia, A Statement, New York Times, 12 April 1952

Mindich, Jeremy, Re-reading Ninotchka: A Misread Commentary on Social and Economic Systems Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, 20 (1990)

Ceplair, Larry, Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical (Kentucky, 2015)
Critchlow, Donald, When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Stars, Studio Moguls, and Big Business Remade American Politics (New York, 2013)

Fitzgerald, Brian, McCarthyism: The Red Scare (Minneapolis, 2007)

Strada, Michael and Troper, Harold, Friend or Foe: American Film and Foreign Policy, 1933-1991 (Kent, 1997)

Freedland, Michael, Witch Hunt in Hollywood: McCarthyism's War on Tinseltown (London, 2009)

Gladchuck, John, Hollywood and Anticommunism: HUAC and the Evolution of the Red Menace, 1935-1950 (New York, 2009)

Hoover, J Edgar, 'J. Edgar Hoover: Testimony Before HUAC March 26 1947, in E. Schrecker (ed), The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 2001)

Humphries, Reynolds, Hollywoods Blacklists: A Political and Cultural History (Edinburgh, 2010)

Johnson, Eric, 'The Waldorf Statement December 4 1947' in Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, (Boston, 2001) 

Leffler, Melvyn, 'American Cold War Policies Reexamined' in William Chafe and Harvard Sitkoff (eds) A History of Our Time: Readings on Post War America (New York, 1995)

Schrecker, Ellen, Many are the Crimes (New York, 1998)

Schrecker, Ellen, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 2002)

Sibley, Katherine, The Cold War (Westport, 1998)

Hearings Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry. Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, First Session, Public law 601, October 20 1947

Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, First Session, Public law 601, October 20 1947

Whitfield, Stephen, The Culture of the Cold War (Baltimore, 1996)

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Welcome To Flights Of Fantasy Books & Games!






Flights of Fantasy is Now a
Pokemon Go Destination!



MTG RAvnica NEWS!
Ravnica Allegiance is a 264 card set. Darkness is coming to Ravnica. A conflict that could tear apart the world itself looms large, and the fragile peace between the guilds is strained to its breaking point. Now, with everything on the line, it`s time to step up, prove your loyalty, and fight for your guild.

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For MTG trade/buy/store credit please contact Maria or Dave thru the store or availability (excluding Saturday mornings) 
If you want cash, you must accept Paypal! 

MTG PLAYERS! 
We have millions of MTG cards in stock from Alpha thru current set and will be online soon with a TCG E-store at www.tcgplayer.com

Come on by and check them out!

CHECK OUT OUR EXCITING NEW FEATURE!
Games with James!



Flights of Fantasy's Store Clerk James gives you the low-down on great games available right in the store!

Flights of Fantasy now has signed copies of the following authors' books:

Elizabeth Bear
Anne Bishop
Ben Bova
Peter Brett
David Brin
Kristen Britain
Terry Brooks
Lois McMaster Bujold
SC Butler
Patricia Bray
Chelsea Cain
Barbara Campbell
James Cambias
Cinda Williams Chima
David Coe
Glen Cook
Larry Correia
Julie Czerneda
Charles De Lint
Stephen Donaldson
David Drake
Sarah Beth Durst
Ian Esselmont
Steven Erikson
Charles Gannon
Max Gladstone
Alex Gordon

Charlaine Harris
Eloisa James
Les Johnson
Jack McDevitt
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Gregory Maguire
L. E. Modesitt
Kim Newman
Garth Nix
Joshua Palmatier
Rachel Pollack
Robert Redick
Mike Resnick
John Ringo
Kim Stanley Robinson
Pamela Sargent
Robert Sawyer
Alex Shvartsman
Rik Spoor
Kristine Smith
Allen Steele
Carol Stevermer
Charles Vess
Jo Walton
David Weber
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
George Zebrowski 

Check out our web store of  collectibles here. To waive shipping, email us at fof.net@gmail.com, then visit the store to pay for and pick up your item!


Find us on www.tcgplayer.com with our online store

Search Sellers :  FlightsOfFantasy or: https://shop.tcgplayer.com/sellerfeedback/13dc220f



We are located at 381 Sand Creek Road, Albany, NY 12205.
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And check out our weekly gaming events!



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Planning - The Core Reason Why Gameplay Feels Good

In this post I dig into planning, and how it is a fundamental part of what makes a game engaging. Planning affects many aspects of what is so special about games and why we enjoy playing them. This post will go over the reasons behind this, and explains why planning is so important for narrative games.

I think we can all agree that there is a difference in how certain games feel to play. There are just certain games that feel "gamier" than others. Just compare playing Super Mario to something like Dear Esther, and I think it's clear that the former feels like it has more gameplay than the latter. What is it that causes this? My hypothesis: the ability to plan.

The more a player can plan ahead in a game, the more engaging that game will feel to play.

Before I cover some evidence of why this is most likely true, I will need to get into some background information. In order to understand why planning has such a prominent role in games, we need to look into the evolution of our species and answer this question: why are fish so stupid?

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This is how the world looks to the average fish:


They can really only see 1-2 meters in front of them and often it's even worse than that. This means that a fish can't do much planning. It just reacts to whatever pops up in front of its face; that's really what their lives are all about. If a fish's life was a game, it would be a limited version of Guitar Hero played to random noise. This is why fishing works. Fish don't think like us, they're mainly just driven by hardwired responses.

For a large part of earth's history this was what life was like for organisms. But then 400 million or so years ago something happened. Fish started to move on to land. Suddenly, the view looked more like this:


This changed their world. Suddenly it was possible to plan ahead and to properly think about your environment. Previously, smart brains had been a waste of energy, but now it was a great asset. In fact, so important was this shift that it is probably a big factor in how consciousness evolved.  Malcolm MacIver, who as far as I can tell originated this theory, writes about it like this:
"But then, about 350 million years ago in the Devonian Period, animals like Tiktaalik started making their first tentative forays onto land. From a perceptual point of view, it was a whole new world. You can see things, roughly speaking, 10,000 times better. So, just by the simple act of poking their eyes out of the water, our ancestors went from the mala vista of a fog to a buena vista of a clear day, where they could survey things out for quite a considerable distance. 
This puts the first such members of the "buena vista sensing club" into a very interesting position, from an evolutionary perspective. Think of the first animal that gains whatever mutation it might take to disconnect sensory input from motor output (before this point, their rapid linkage was necessary because of the need for reactivity to avoid becoming lunch). At this point, they can potentially survey multiple possible futures and pick the one most likely to lead to success. For example, rather than go straight for the gazelle and risk disclosing your position too soon, you may choose to stalk slowly along a line of bushes (wary that your future dinner is also seeing 10,000 times better than its watery ancestors) until you are much closer."
 To showcase the above, he has the following image:


This images nicely shows the conceptual difference in the processes involved. In one you basically just use a linear process and "react as you go". In the other one you scout the terrain ahead, consider various approaches and then pick one that seems, given the available data, to be the best one. 

It is not exactly the same, but there is a striking likeness to the following image comparing old school and more modern FPS design:

I know that this is not a completely fair comparison, but the important point here is that when we look at these two images, it feels pretty clear which of these two designs ought to have the best gameplay. The image on the left represents a more complex and interesting landscape, while the one on the right represent a linear sequence of events. And just like the worlds of a fish compared to that of the world of land animals, this means a huge difference in our ability to plan.

There are other interesting connections with the ability to see far and to plan. Malcolm MacIver replies to a question regarding the intelligence of octopi:
"It's incredible what being an unprotected blob of delicious protein will get you after eons of severe predation stress. They, by the way, have the largest eyes known (basketball size in the biggest deep sea species). Apparently, they use these to detect the very distant silhouettes of whales, their biggest threats, against the light of the surface. 
The theory is committed to the idea that the advantage of planning will be proportional to the margin of where you sense relative to where you move in your reaction time. It then identifies one period in our evolutionary past when there was a massive change in this relationship, and suggests this might have been key to the development of this capacity. It's interesting that octopuses and archerfish tend to be still before executing their actions. This maximally leverages their relatively small sensoria. There may be other ways, in other words, for animals trapped in the fog of water to get a big enough sensorium relative to where they are moving to help with planning."
Sight is of course not the only reason for us humans to have evolved our current level of intelligence and consciousness. Other important factors are our upright pose and our versatile hands. Standing up meant that we could see further and allowed us to use our hands more easily. Our hands are the main means with which we shape the world around us. They allowed us to craft tools, and in various ways to change parts of the environment to optimize our survival. All of these things are deeply connected to the ability to plan. Once we learned how to reshape the world around us, our options opened up and the complexity of our plans increased immensely. 

It doesn't stop there. Planning is also a crucial part of our social life. Theory of mind, our ability to simulate other people, is both a reason for and a product of our planning abilities. Navigating our social groups has always been a careful activity of thinking about various paths of action and their consequences. 

Planning also underlies two other phenomena that have been discussed recently on this blog: Mental Models and Presence. The reason why we have mental models is so that we can evaluate actions before we make them, which obviously is crucial to planning. Presence is a phenomenon that comes from us incorporating ourselves into our plans. We don't just want to model what happens to the world, but also to ourselves.

So, to sum things up: there are lots of evolutionary reasons why planning would be a fundamental part of what makes us human. It's a big part of who we are, and when we are able to make use of these abilities we are bound to find that engaging. 

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So this background is all very well, but is there really any good evidence that this is actually a thing in games? Yes - in fact, quite a bit of it! Let's review the ones that I find the most important.

There is a model of player engagement called PENS (Player Experience of Need Satisfaction) which is quite rigorously researched. It uses the following criteria to evaluate what a player thinks about a game.
  • Competence. This is how well a game satisfies our need to feel competent - the sense of having mastered the game. 
  • Autonomy. How much freedom does the player have and what options do they have to express it?
  • Relatedness. How well is the player's desire to connect with other people satisfied?
Measuring how well a game performs on the above metrics has been shown to be a much better indicator of various types of success (sales, how likely people are to recommend the game, and so forth) than simply asking if the game is "fun". 

And, more importantly, two of the above factors are directly related to planning. Both Competence and Autonomy heavily rely on the player's ability to plan. Let's go over why this is so.

In order for a player to feel competent at a game they need to have a deep understanding of how the game works. Sure, there are games where mere reflexes are enough, but these are always very simplistic. Even in most rhythm games there are certain rules that the player needs to learn and understand in order to play well. A big part is also learning the melodies that make up each level. Why? In order to optimally place your inputs (be that fingers or feet) to hit as many beats as possible. All of these aspects boil down to one thing: being able to predict the future.

You see the same thing in most games. You get better at Darks Souls when you understand how monsters attack, how levels are laid out and how your own attacks work. Learning how a world operates and gaining the ability to predict is a cornerstone of competence. Sure, you also need to develop the motor skills to carry out the required actions, but this is almost always less important than understanding the whys and whens of the actions. Simply being able to predict is not enough, you also need to have a sense of what goal you are trying to achieve and then, using your predictive abilities, to carry out the steps required to reach it. Or in other words: you need to be able to plan.

Autonomy is also highly dependent on the ability to plan. Imagine a game where you have plenty of freedom, but have no idea how the game works. Everybody who has booted up a complex strategy game without understanding the basics knows that this is not very engaging. In order for the freedom to mean something, you need to have an idea what to do with it. You need to understand how the game's mechanics behave, what tools are at your disposal, and what goals you want to achieve. Without this, freedom is confusing and pointless.

So in order to provide a sense of autonomy a game needs to not only provide a large possibility space, but also teach the player how the world works and what the player's role in it is. The player needs to be able to mentally simulate various actions that can take place, and then come up with sequences that can be used to attain a specific goal. When you have this, you have freedom that is worth having. It should be pretty obvious that I am again describing the ability to plan. A world in which the player is not able to plan is also one with little autonomy.

Similarly, if the game only features a linear sequence of events, there's not much planning to be done. In order for the player to be able to craft plans there need to be options. This is not the case if only a certain chain of actions is possible. This scenario is a typical example of having no freedom, and unsatisfactory in terms of autonomy.  Again, planning and autonomy are intricately linked.

One could make the case that Relatedness also has a connection with planning. As explained earlier, any social interactions heavily rely on our ability to plan. However, I don't think this is strong enough and the other two aspects are more than enough. Instead let's look at evidence from a different angle.


One trend that has been going on for a long time in games is the addition of extra "meta" features. A very common one right now is crafting, and almost all big games have it in some way or another. It's also common to have RPG-like levelling elements, not just for characters, but for assets and guns as well. Collecting a currency that can then be used to buy a variety of items also turns up a lot. Take a look at just about any recent release and you are bound to find at least one of these.

So why do games have them? The answer to that is quite easy: it makes the game more engaging. The harder question is why that should be the case. It can't solely be because it gives the player more to do. If that was the case you would see games adding a random variety of mini games to spice things up. But instead we are seeing certain very specific types of features being used over and over again.

My theory for this is that it's all to do with planning. The main reason that these features are there is because it gives the player a larger possibility space of plans, and more tools to incorporate into their planning. For instance, the act of collecting currency combined with a shop means that the player will have the goal of buying a particular item. Collecting a certain amount of currency with a view to exchange it for goods is a plan. If the desired item and the method in which the coins are collected are both connected to the core gameplay loop, then this meta feature will make the core loop feel like it has more planning that it actually has. 

These extra features can also spice up the normal gameplay. Just consider how you need to think about what weapons to use in combat during The Last of Us. You have some scrap you can craft items from, and all of those items will allow you to use different tactics during combat. And because you cannot make all of them, you have to make a choice. Making this choice is making a plan, and the game's sense of engagement is increased. 

Whatever your views on this sort of meta-feature are, one thing is certain: they work. Because if they weren't we wouldn't be seeing this rise in them persist over such a long time. Sure, it's possible to make a game with a ton of planning without any of these features. But that's the hard way. Having these features is a well-tested way to increasing engagement, and thus something that is very tempting to add, especially when you lose a competitive advantage by not doing so.


Finally, I need to discuss what brought me into thinking about planning at all. It was when I started to compare SOMA to Amnesia: The Dark Descent. When designing SOMA it was really important for us to have as many interesting features as possible, and we wanted the player to have a lot of different things to do. I think it is safe to say that SOMA has a wider range of interactions and more variety than what Amnesia: The Dark Descent had. But despite this, a lot of people complained that SOMA was too much of a walking simulator. I can't recall a single similar comment about Amnesia. Why was this so?

At first I couldn't really understand it, but then I started to outline the major differences between the games:
  • Amnesia's sanity system
  • The light/health resource management.
  • Puzzles spread across hubs.
All of these things are directly connected with the player's ability to plan. The sanity system means the player needs to think about what paths they take, whether they should look at monsters, and so forth. These are things the player needs to account for when they move through a level, and provide a constant need to plan ahead.

The resource management system works in a similar fashion, as players need to think about when and how they use the resources they have available. It also adds another layer as it makes it more clear to the player what sort of items they will find around a map. When the player walks into a room and pulls out drawers this is not just an idle activity. The player knows that some of these drawers will contain useful items and looting a room becomes part of a larger plan. 

In Amnesia a lot of the level design worked by having a large puzzle (e.g. starting an elevator) that was solved by completing a set of spread out and often interconnected puzzles. By spreading the puzzles across the rooms, the player needs to always consider where to go next. It's not possible to just go with a simple "make sure I visit all locations" algorithm to progress through the game. Instead you need to think about what parts of the hub-structure you need to go back to, and what puzzles there are left to solve. This wasn't very complicated, but it was enough to provide a sense of planning.

SOMA has none of these features, and none of its additional features make up for the loss of planning. This meant that the game overall has this sense of having less gameplay, and for some players this meant the game slipped into walking simulator territory. Had we known about the importance of the ability to plan, we could have done something to fix this. 

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A "normal" game that relies on a standard core gameplay loop doesn't have this sort of problem. The ability to plan is built into the way that classical gameplay works. Sure, this knowledge can be used to make such games better, but it's by no means imperative. I think this is a reason why planning as a foundational aspects of games is so undervalued. The only concrete example that I have found[1] is this article by Doug Church where he explains it like this:
"These simple, consistent controls, coupled with the very predictable physics (accurate for a Mario world), allow players to make good guesses about what will happen should they try something. Monsters and environments increase in complexity, but new and special elements are introduced slowly and usually build on an existing interaction principle. This makes game situations very discernable — it's easy for the players to plan for action. If players see a high ledge, a monster across the way, or a chest under water, they can start thinking about how they want to approach it. 
This allows players to engage in a pretty sophisticated planning process. They have been presented (usually implicitly) with knowledge of how the world works, how they can move and interact with it, and what obstacle they must overcome. Then, often subconsciously, they evolve a plan for getting to where they want to go. While playing, players make thousands of these little plans, some of which work and some of which don't. The key is that when the plan doesn't succeed, players understand why. The world is so consistent that it's immediately obvious why a plan didn't work. "
This is really spot on, an excellent description of what I am talking about. This is an article from 1999 and have had trouble finding any other source that discuss it, let alone expands upon the concept since then. Sure, you could say that planning is summed up in Sid Meier's "A series of interesting choices", but that seems to me too fuzzy to me. It is not really about the aspect of predicting how a world operates and then making plans based on that.

The only time when it does sort of come up is when discussing the Immersive Sim genre. This is perhaps not a big surprise given that Doug Church had a huge part in establishing the genre. For instance, emergent gameplay, which immersive sims are especially famous for, relies heavily on being able to understand the world and then making plans based on that. This sort of design ethos can be clearly seen in recent games such as Dishonored 2, for instance [2].  So it's pretty clear that game designers think in these terms. But it's a lot less clear to me that it is viewed as a fundamental part of what makes games engaging and it feels like it is more treated like a subset of design.

As I mentioned above this is probably because when you take part in "normal" gameplay, a lot of planning comes automatically. However, this isn't the case with narrative games. In fact, narrative games are often considered "lesser games" in the regard that they don't feature as much normal gameplay as something like Super Mario. Because of this, it's very common to discuss games in terms of whether you like them to be story-heavy or gameplay-heavy, as if either has to necessarily exclude the other. However, I think a reason there is still such a big discrepancy is because we haven't properly figured out how gameplay in narrative games work. As I talked about in an earlier blog post, design-wise, we are stuck at a local maxima.

The idea that planning is fundamental to games presents a solution to this problem. Instead of saying "narrative games need better gameplay", we can say that "narrative games need more planning".

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In order to properly understand what we need to do with planning, we need to have some sort of supportive theory to makes sense of it all. The SSM Framework that I presented last week fits nicely into that role.

It is really best to read up on last week's blog post to get the full details, but for the sake of completeness I shall summarise the framework here.

We can divide a game into three different spaces. First of all we have System space. This where all the code is and where all the simulations happen. The System space deals with everything as abstract symbols and algorithms. Secondly we have the Story space which provides context for the the things that happen in the System space. In System space Mario is just a set of collision boundaries, but then when that abstract information is run through the Story space that turns into an Italian plumber. Lastly, we have the Mental Model space. This is how the player thinks about the game and is a sort of mental replica of all that exists in the game world. However, since the player mostly never understands exactly what goes on System space (nor how to properly interpret the story context), this is just an educated guess. In the end though, the Mental Model is what the player uses in order to play the game and what they base their decisions on.

Given this we can now start to define what gameplay is. First of all we need to talk about the concept of an action. An action is basically whatever the player performs when they are playing the game and it has the following steps:
  1. Evaluate the information received from the System and Story space.
  2. Form a Mental Model based on the information at hand.
  3. Simulate the consequences of performing a particular action.
  4. If the consequences seem okay, send the appropriate input (e.g. pushing a button) to the game.
A lot of this happens unconsciously. From the player's point of view they will mostly view this sequence as "doing something" and are unaware of the actual thought process that takes place. But really, this always happens when the player does something in a game, be that jumping over a chasm in Super Mario or placing a house in Sim City.

Now that we understand what an action is, we can move on to gameplay. This is all about stringing several actions together, but with one caveat: you don't actually send the input to the game, you just imagine doing so. So this string of actions are built together in mental model space, evaluating them and then if the results feel satisfactory, only then do we start to send the required input.



Put in other words: gameplay is all about planning and then executing that plan. And based upon all of the evidence that I showed above, my hypothesis is: the more actions you can string together, the better the gameplay feels.

It isn't enough to simply string together any actions and call that a plan. First of all, the player needs to have an idea of some sort of goal they are trying to achieve. The actions also need be non-trivial. Simply having a bunch of walking actions strung together will not be very engaging to the player. It's also worth pointing out that planning is by no means the only thing that makes a game engaging. All other design thinking doesn't suddenly go out the window just because you focus on planning. 

However, there are a bunch of design principles that go hand in hand with planning. For instance, to have a consistent world is crucial, because otherwise it isn't possible for the player to form a plan. This is why invisible walls are so annoying; they seriously impede our ability to create and execute plans. It also explains why it's so annoying when failure seems random. For gameplay to feel good, we need to be able to mentally simulate exactly what went wrong. Like Doug Church expressed in a quote above: when a player fails they always need to know why.

Another example is the adventure game advice that you should always have several puzzles going at once. In planning terms this is because we always want to make sure the player has ample room to plan, "I will first solve this and then that". There are lots of other similar principles that have to do with planning. So while planning is not the only thing that makes a game engaging, a great number of things that do can be derived from it.

Let's quickly look at some examples from actual games.

Say that the player wants to assassinate the guy in red in this situation. What the player does not do is simply jump down and hope for the best. They need to have some sort of plan before going on. They might first wait for the guard to leave, teleport behind the victim, and then sneak up and stab them. When that's done they leave the same way they came. This is something the player works out in their head before doing anything. It isn't until they have some sort of plan that they start acting.

This plan might not work, the player might fail to sneak up on the guy and then he sound an alarm. In this case the plan breaks, however that doesn't mean that the player's plan was totally untrue. It just meant they didn't manage to pull off one of the actions of. If presented properly, players are okay with this. In the same way, the player might have misinterpreted their mental model or missed something. This is also okay as long as the player can update their mental model in a coherent fashion. And next time the player tries to execute a similar plan they will get better at it.

Often this ability to carry out your plans is what makes the game the most engaging. Usually a game starts out a bit dull, as your mental models are a bit broken and the ability to plan not very good. But then, as you play, this gets better and you start stringing together longer sets of actions and therefore having more fun. This is why tutorials can be so important. They are a great place to get away from that initial dullness by making the experience a bit simpler and guiding the player to think in the correct manner about how the game works.

It's also worth noting that plans should never be too simple to carry out. Then the actions become trivial. There needs to be a certain degree of non-triviality for engagement to remain.

Planning doesn't always need to happen in the long term, it can also be very short term. Take this scene from Super Mario, for instance:



Here the player needs to make a plan in a split second. The important thing to notice here is that the player doesn't simply react blindly. Even in a stressful situation, if the game works as it should, the player quickly formulates a plan and then tries to carry out that plan.

Now compare these two examples to a game like Dear Esther:



There are a lot of things one can like about this game, but I think everybody agrees that the gameplay is lacking. What's harder to agree on, though, is what's missing. I've heard a lot about the lack of fail states and competitive mechanics, but I don't find these convincing. As you might guess, I think the missing ingredient is planning.

The main reason that people find Dear Esther unengaging is not because they cannot fail, or because there is nothing to compete against. It's because the game doesn't allow them to form and execute plans. We need to figure out ways of fixing this.

By thinking about the planning in terms of the SSM-framework we get a hint at what sort of gameplay that can constitute "narrative play": When you form a plan in Mental Model space it is important that the actions are mostly grounded in the data received from Story space. Compare the the following two plans:

1) "First I pick up 10 items to increase the character X's trust meter, this will allow me to reach the 'friendship'-threshold and X will now be part of my crew. This awards me 10 points in range combat bonus."

2) "If I help out X with cleaning her room, I might be able to be friends with her. This would be great as I could then ask her to join us on our journey. She seems like a great sharpshooter and I would feel much safer with her onboard."

This is a fairly simplistic example, but I hope I get the point across. Both of these describe the same plan, but they have vastly different in how the data is interpreted. Number 1 is just all abstract system-space, and the number 2 has a more narrative feel, and is grounded in the story space. When the gameplay is about making plans like the second example, that is when we start to get something that feels like proper narrative play. This is a crucial step in evolving the art of interactive storytelling.

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I believe thinking about planning is a crucial step in order to get better narrative games. For too long, game design has relied on the planning component arising naturally out of 'standard' gameplay, but when we no longer have that we need to take extra care. It's imperative to understand that it drives gameplay, and therefore that we need to make sure our narrative experiences include this. Planning is by no means a silver bullet, but it's a really important ingredient. It's certainly something that we're putting a lot of thought into when making our future titles here at Frictional Games.



Footnotes:

1) If anyone has other concrete resources describing planning as a fundamental part of games I'd love to hear about them. Please post about them in the comments if you know any.

2) Steve Lee had an excellent lecture called "An Approach to Holistic Level Design" at this year's GDC where he talked a lot about player intentionality. This is another concept closely related to planning.

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