User:Arne le Roi/sandbox

Reworking the Kiavalari Page

The High Kingdom of Serene Kiavalar شهید فرلییر ولاریه کیامت پادشاهی
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "Arad Khazar!"
Anthem: "Ave Valar Arbad" Royal anthem: "The Griffon Spread's it's Wings"
Capital	Karvalaar
Economic Centre	Ethelar
Official languages	Low Vahari Extera
Recognised national languages	Dazarni High Vahari Tyrilliyin
Recognised regional languages	Cyrthwen Arunial Lavari
Ethnic groups (2500)	72.8% Valari 12.2% Dahari  6.7% Ithilian  3.1% Cymweg  1.8% Azarian  1.5% Others
Religion	82.8% Kayaii  10.1% Athiest  7.1% Others
Demonym	Kiavalari
Government	Unitary Parliamentary Constitutional Diarchy
• High King	Albert I
• High Queen	Illyria II
• Chancellor	Gourdain d'al Viyeriyin
• High Deiticar	Celyne XIV
Legislature	National Parliament of Kiavalar
• Upper house	The Grand Assembly
• Lower house	The General Assembly
HDI (2500)	TBD
Currency	Alaxian Krone
Internet TLD	.val
Today part of	High Kingdoms of Alaxia

Some say the pen is mightier than the sword, others exclaim the sword to be sharper than the pen. In the Serene lands of Valar, we use both. - Lord-General Sevatar Castlereagh

One of the first generation, original nations to start out in XWR2. A very rough equivalent of Iran or the Mughals. A consistent innovator in technology throughout the ages. It had a single role-player that had controlled the nation on and off through it's ongoing lifespan. It spent a lot of it's early years being isolated from other player nations. Later on due to inactivity, the nation fell behind was conquered by Suton, being converted into a colony. After changing hands for a few times, it regained it's independence and is now one of the major powers of the world.

History

Nomadic Era

Although the nation was formed around 152 XY, the original people were from a different land. Starting out as a collection of nomadic tribes, some 3000 years ago in one of three regions. Since the tribes only passed on history vocally, most accounts of the old people are from other tribes or even city states that were subject to it's raids. The modern consensus is that the people of 'Vahar' started out in the central

See Also

Some of the first generation of video game consoles like dedicated Pong consoles were imported into the UK but did not gain much traction. Home video games were popularized in the United Kingdom during 1982–1984. There was a short-lived home console market in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. The success of Space Invaders in the arcades generated demand for the Atari VCS, which had an official home version of Space Invaders released in 1980. The Atari VCS sold 125,000 units in the United Kingdom that year along with 500,000 game cartridges, becoming the best-selling console in the UK up until then. Portable LCD games also gained popularity the same year, including Space Invaders clones such as Atari's Galaxy Invaders and Casio's MG-880 calculator game, as well as the Sharp PC-1211 pocket computer sold by Tandy under the Radio Shack TRS-80 brand.

The home console market crash of 1983, whose effects primarily impacted North America, was offset in the UK by the simultaneous transition to a market dominated by microcomputers and LCD games. The switch towards microcomputers, and the more transient fad of LCD games, was already an apparent, emergent trend by the time of the crash, which, in the UK, merely accelerated an inevitable transition to microcomputers. The home computer market and concomitant domestic game production took off so rapidly during 1983 and thereafter that the UK market, in totality, not only withstood the crash but immediately began growing, albeit almost entirely in the new direction of microcomputers. Pre-dating and then becoming concurrent with the console market's troubles, the arrival of affordable home computers in the early 1980s, with graphical capabilities matching or exceeding the second-generation consoles, such as the Atari VCS, dealt a severe blow to consoles in the UK. Home computers offered significantly cheaper software compared to the more expensive console game cartridges. By 1984, computer games had overtaken both consoles and LCD games as the largest sector of the UK home video game market.

Whereas the North American and Japanese home video game markets boomed with console games, the UK market for home video games was grown out of home computers (also known as microcomputers), specifically the BBC Micro from Acorn Computers in 1981, and the ZX Spectrum from Sinclair Research (alongside Sinclair's earlier ZX80 and ZX81 systems) and the Commodore 64 by Commodore International in 1982. In the early 1980s, the UK home computer game industry initially began with British programmers developing unofficial ports and clones of arcade games for home computers, followed by original computer games. The saturation of home computers immunised the UK against the effects of the North American video game crash in 1983, after which the microcomputer game market continued to grow, with significant levels of domestic game production taking place. In 1984, computer games replaced console and LCD games as the largest sector of the UK home video game market.

Computer literacy had been seen by the UK government as a key skill that Britain's children should possess to help improve the technology savvy of the nation in the future. While home computers did exist in the UK market like the Commodore PET and Apple II (both released in 1977), these were comparatively expensive for broad use across the population. The BBC worked with Acorn to create the low-cost BBC Micro home computer alongside a set of broadcast programming to help teach fundamentals of computers for school-aged children. This was used in up to 80% of the schools in the UK at the time, and led to creation of the Spectrum and Commodore 64 to help meet growing demand for the systems. Additionally, youth of the United Kingdom at that time were tinkerers, taking apart and repairing devices including electronics, and the nature of computer programming felt within this same scope.

The United Kingdom had already had a history with board games prior to this revolution, as well as laying claim to starting the fantasy literary genre through J. R. R. Tolkien's works, a major point of inspiration for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game. Thus, with the ability to program their own games through these early home computers, the UK developed an initial home computer game market. Throughout most of the 1980s, British games were typically made by only one person with no formal experience in computer programming attempting to realise a singular vision (these developers were known as "bedroom coders"; some of them achieved a status akin to rockstars within the tech market, and even popular culture more broadly). As there were few game stores in the UK at that time, most of these coders turned to mail order, sending out copies of their games on cassette tape for use in the computer's tape drives. A market developed for companies to help such programmer sell and distribute their games. This industry took off after the release of the ZX Spectrum in 1982: by the end of 1983 there were more than 450 companies selling video games on cassette compared to 95 the year before. An estimated 10,000 to 50,000 youth, mostly male, were making games out of their homes at this time based on advertisements for games in popular magazines. The growth of video games in the UK during this period was comparable to the punk subculture, fueled by young people making money from their games.

One of the earliest such successful titles was Manic Miner, developed and released by Matthew Smith in 1983, sold by Bug-Byte, one of the first publishers in this market. While a loose clone of the United States-developed Miner 2049er, Manic Miner incorporated elements of British humour and other oddities. Manic Miner is considered the quintessential "British game" for this reason, and since then, inspired similar games with the same type of British wit and humour through the present. Another key title from this period was Elite, developed by David Braben and Ian Bell and released in 1984. A non-linear space exploration, trading and combat game, Elite established many of the principles of the open world gameplay concept that are used in most space simulation games today as well as influencing the Grand Theft Auto series, itself a pinnacle of open-world design.

The popularity of video games on home computers within the UK drew sales away from other video game formats. Despite the lack of exposure to the North American crash of 1983, the UK industry of this period still had its notable failures. The success of Imagine Software, formed by former members of Bug-Byte, drew the attention of the BBC as part of a documentary series Commercial Breaks that had been examining successful businesses in new industries. During 1983 and 1984, Imagine had tried to expand its capabilities beyond game programming as well as push the idea of "megagames" that stretched a computer's hardware limits and would be sold at a higher cost, but these efforts backfired, costing Imagine staff and money. By the time the BBC began filming for this episode of Commercial Breaks, Imagine was in a downward spiral, which was notoriously documented by the BBC. A short-term collapse of the computer market occurred from the end of 1984 into 1985. Rival companies Sinclair Research and Acorn Computers began entering a price war on competing systems ahead of end-of-year holidays sales, which created a consumer perception that these systems were nothing more than toys rather than productivity tools. In early 1985, financial institutions became wary of investments into computer companies due to other activities they had made as well. Acorn was acquired by Olivetti over 1985, while Sinclair Research was sold to Amstrad in 1986.

The 32-bit 1987 Acorn Archimedes computer was influential. David Braben's 1987 3D video game Zarch, for the Acorn Archimedes computer, is the word's first (solid) 3D video game; with lighting effects and shadowing, from before computers had special-purpose hardware (GPUs) for such. It started out as the Lander demo packaged with the Archimedes, and was later ported to other computers, such as the Amiga, under the name Virus in 1988, without such lightning support. It was also ported to the Atari ST where it won game of the year 1988 awards. Braben had previously made the 1984 wire-frame 3D game Elite, with Ian Bell, also a first with a 3D graphics technique.

BBC BASIC on the Archimedes was considered as a vehicle for cross-platform game development by David Braben. The BBC Micro was also a development host for the Commodore 64 version of Elite.

The more advanced 16-bit Commodore Amiga and Atari ST machines typically required a full team of developers to build games for; the bedroom coders of the previous years began to fade away as development companies formed to build games on these new systems. First released in 1985, the more expensive hardware and software stifled the uptake of both machines. The cheaper but less powerful Atari ST became the more popular of the two computers; in 1988 it accounted for nearly one in ten of all UK personal computer sales, more than double that of the Amiga. Although chart company Gallup reported in February 1989 that Amiga games had begun to outsell ST games for the first time, the combined sales for both platforms were still less than 10% of the total UK games market. The cheaper eight-bit machines like the ZX Spectrum were continuing to sell well, particularly with parents buying their first computer, with stocks of the Commodore 64 running out over Christmas 1988.

For the following Christmas period, Commodore allowed Ocean Software to bundle Batman, their first game specifically designed for the sixteen-bit machines, with their Amiga 500 computers to create the "Batman Pack". Launched in October 1989 with a TV advertising campaign, it became one of the most successful hardware/software bundles of all time selling over 186,000 units by the end of the following year.

The Amiga's more powerful graphics capabilities enabled game developers to experiment more and helped to expand the demoscene in the UK, which in turn brought in more developers to stretch the capabilities of the computer. A number of influential British companies emerged during this period:

Psygnosis was formed in 1984 after the closure of Imagine Software, and sought to bring the brightest programmers of the day to produce games that they would then publish, along with other in-house developed titles. Psygnosis' catalog has a number of highly praised titles such as Shadow of the Beast and Obliterator. The publisher was eventually acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment to develop the Wipeout series among other titles, and while the studio was shuttered in 2012, most of its activities had been adsorbed into the Sony structure.

Sensible Software, founded by Jon Hare and Chris Yates in 1986, was already a successful 8-bit developer prior to success across Europe with Amiga hits like Sensible World of Soccer, Cannon Fodder and Mega-Lo-Mania topping the UK all formats games charts for 52 weeks from June 1992 to 1995. Sensible World of Soccer was the only European-developed game entered into the game canon, a list of 10 video games created by Stanford University for preservation by the Library of Congress. The New York Times called the creation of this list "an assertion that digital games have a cultural significance and a historical significance". Sensible Software was acquired by Codemasters in 1999.

DMA Design, among whose first titles was the best-selling Lemmings in 1991. DMA Design, after several more titles, would go on to produce Grand Theft Auto in 1997, and would lead them to ultimately be acquired by Take Two Interactive and rebranded as Rockstar Games, with the original studio renamed as Rockstar North.

Bullfrog Productions was founded by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, with one of their first titles being Populous, the title that established the god game genre. Bullfrog developed several other influential titles, including the Dungeon Keeper series, the Syndicate series, and Theme-related titles including Theme Park and Theme Hospital. Though Bullfrog was ultimately acquired and shuttered by Electronic Arts, the Bullfrog team went on to establish other influential UK studios, including Molyneux's Lionhead Studios, Media Molecule, Hello Games, and Two Point Studios.

Team17 was initially born out of the demoscene, but produced a number of successful Amiga games, finding success in the Worms series in 1995. Today, Team17 also now serves as a video game publishers for many independent studios.

During this period, video game consoles from the fourth generation, including the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, began to gain interest in the UK. Such interest led to more corporate structure around video game development to support the costs and hardware needed to develop games on these platforms, and caused a decline of the popularity of the bedroom coder by 1995. However, the bedroom coders had seeded the necessary elements as to gain interest from United States companies looking for talent around this time, leading to various acquisitions and partnerships between US and UK game companies around this time.