HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 15:08:31 EST
From: Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Intelligence Assumptions
 <GNAT.92Nov19215055@kauri.kauri.vuw.ac.nz> <dpn2.121.722195016@po.CWRU.Edu>

In article <dpn2.121.722195016@po.CWRU.Edu>, dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
says:

>"Jump off ledge" is fairly specific -- if the player really wants to do it,
>they should be able to. However, the player should not (IMHO) be able to
>type "go north" and accidentally walk off the ledge.

I agree with both of those two sentences. If you really want to do something
(in a game), even if it's stupid, it should be allowed. (f'rexample, in
Unnkulian Unventure I, you can eat nearly everything. Most of it's very
bad for you, of course, but some stuff, like the Acme Dam Bounsee Basketbawl,
is actually nutritious...) On the other hand, a general statement like
"go north" should have some common sense applied to it.

For some astoundingly dangerous actions I think a confirm is a useful device...

----------------------------------------------------

You're flying just above an old, ruined castle. The enclosed courtyard looks
big enough to land your 'copter in.

> land the helicopter in the courtyard

As you decrease altitude you notice that the castle's courtyard, while big
enough to accommodate the helicopter, is full of the rubble from collapsed
towers, and two more of the towers stick out directly in the way of your path.
Are you sure you want to do this?

> yes

Mistake, mistake, mistake... the helicopter blades clip one of the towers on
the way down. The 'copter does an amazing midair 180-degree flip and explodes
with you in it.

*** You have died... ***
----------------------------------------------------

What is the net.opinion on confirms in adventure games, anyway? While they
do warn the player of some unobvious deaths, on the other hand they can almost
always be rewritten out (ie, "You are flying above a castle courtyard, full of
sharp and dangerous-looking debris from collapsed towers." If the player then
proceeds to try to land in that, they have no one to blame but themselves when
the 'copter crashes; alternatively, the computer could just state that the
courtyard is too dangerous to land in.) Nevertheless, rather than just being
presented with a message like "It's too dangerous," if the player REALLY
wants to land in the courtyard, then... Thoughts?

 "But Dr. Radium, was that necessary?" "Rez, _everything_ I do is necessary."
[Your blood pressure just went up.]        Mark Sachs IS: mbs110@psuvm.psu.edu
DISCLAIMER: If PSU knew I had opinions they'd probably try to charge me for it.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: yuaw@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Aw Yang Uei)
Subject: **Animate -- Games **
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:01:12 GMT

Hi,

  I realized that there are a lot of articals about Text Adventure games in
this newsgroup, I am just wondering, anyone out there write animate games?

  And, anyone know whethere there is any 'nice and neat' package with 'good'
build in functions for animate game?

  Lastly, this question might sound easy to some of you, but :

    Can an animate picture being draw in 'hand' and later uses a scanner
to scan in and then use it in our program?



   Thanks in advance for answering.



   Uei.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: fxmlk@acad3.alaska.edu (KIENENBERGER MIKE L)
Subject: Re: Infocom Player problems
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41.UAC
Organization: University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 21:27:00 GMT

In article <of1b7B200WBO81BY51@andrew.cmu.edu>,
sh4j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Samuel Roy Helwig) writes...
>    Has anyone compiled the Infocom Task Force player version avilable
>from 149.171.16.16?  I've tried to compile this player on various
>platforms including a DECStation 5000 (Ultrix) , 386 running 386BSD, am
>IBM RT running BSD 4.3 and a Sun 4.  All these machine compile fine
>using bsd mode in the makefile.  However, when I try to run the
>resultant executable, I get a Seg Fault.  Anyone have a clue?  The only
>thing that I can get the player to do is display it's list of parameters
>(a.k.a. run it without any command-line parameters).

In article <uerics.721975805@mcl>,
uerics@mcl.ucsb.edu (Eric D. Shepherd) responds...
>Which version of the ITF program are you trying to compile?  I'm in the
>process of doing a major port of the program, and the games play just fine
>(using v4.01).  I no longer have the original source code - mine has all
>the conditional stuff removed to save disk space (and - heh, heh, heh -
>compile time).  But it runs beautifully.
> 
>A friend and I are working on building it into a fully windowed system
>with macros and pull-down menus.  It's really cool.

Followups should REALLY be directed to rec.games.int-fiction.

ITF V4.01 had problems.  I don't know if a later version is out yet, but
two bug fixes were posted to the net.  4.01 will run fine on IBMs (I believe),
but it was never tested on other systems and has fatal bugs.  The problem is
that it tries to do some variable manipulation before doing initialization.
The major bug fix is to change infocom.c so that the order is
	INIT_IO () ;
	init () ;
	init_script () ;
instead of whatever it currently is.  There's also some other fixes,
but that's the major one.  I can dig up the patches if there's enough interest.
=============================================================================
-Mike Kienenberger                       FXMLK@ALASKA           (BITNet)
 Academic Computing                      FXMLK@acad3.alaska.edu (Internet)
 University of Alaska-Fairbanks
 "I'm a computer programmer....<link><link><kludge><kludge> say-no-more!"
From: djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Bubblyhotrock (was Sense of Wonder)
Date: 17 Nov 92 19:29:34 GMT
Organization: =CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego

>However, I may have to seriously rethink the puzzle for another reason. 
>I have to give the carriage a door.  It struck me that a carriage is
>pretty useless if it only had one entrance on one side.  Well, back to
>the drawing board.

Door or the latch could be rusted shut.  Or perhaps it is just
locked (although allow them in from the other side so they
don't spend 2 weeks figuring out how to get in).
-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
    Macintosh - you can buy better, but you can't pay more!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu>
Subject: Re: So you want to write a text adventure?
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A72C4CE2C2023165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Sun, 15 Nov 92 23:52:18 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 23:49:38 GMT

In article <41025@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> Darin Johnson, djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu
writes:
>So, reading between the lines, can we assume TADS will only be
>developed if there is a market?  I think the comment on "C" was
>whether or not it would be available in source code form, so it
>could be put on any machine (ie, unix, amiga, apple iigs, etc.)

I don't want to speak for Mike Roberts, but I would suggest that if
someone contacted him and offered to port TADS to the Apple II, then it
might work.  Just understand that this is not a major software
distributor we're talking about here -- the money-grubbing of commercial
software is not at question, but the time required to conduct the porting
operation is.

-- Russ
From: jeras@oracle.com (John Eras)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Intelligence Assumptions
Date: 20 Nov 92 20:56:37 GMT
	<Bxzwpq.AvL@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
	<1992Nov20.043722.2838@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>
Organization: Oracle Corp., Belmont CA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

>In article <Bxzwpq.AvL@news.cso.uiuc.edu> amead@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Alan Mead) writes:
>>My opinion as player and author is to give people the right to do stupid
>>things.  For TADS users, v2.0 makes this moot, I believe, with its new undo
>>feature (supposedly up to 100 levels under "most conditions" whatever that
>>means).  Somehow this seems the best of all possible worlds.  People are free
>>to do dumb things (ie, experiment) and yet they won't get hung up saving their
>>position every five minutes.

TADS 2.0 has a default undo buffer of 16k (as I recall).  It tracks all
the objects and things that you've changed in its undo log, so the number
of turns that can actually be undone depends on what you've done, if you
see what I mean.  The 100 levels is just an approximation, but whatever
the number really is, it's still one helluva lot more than the Infocom
games which supported maybe one level.

In article <1992Nov20.043722.2838@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (John P. Mechalas) writes:
> As far as I know, you can't UNDO being dead...  If you die, you have to restore.
>I don't know if this is true for TADS 2.0, but it is for Infocom games that
>support undo...or at least all the ones I have played..

Sure you can undo being dead (isn't that the main reason for having undo?),
at least in all the Infocom games that *I* have played.  An UNDO option
was added to the SAVE, RESTORE, or QUIT question in ADV.T for TADS as well.

[By the way, you may be wondering how I know so much about TADS 2.0.  I'm
not a member of High Energy (although I play one on TV), I'm just a friend
of the author's.  These posts, of course, are made without his consent or
approval. :) ]

--
jeras@us.oracle.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: ojwb1@cl.cam.ac.uk (O.J.W. Betts)
Subject: Re: Bubblyhotrock (was Sense of Wonder)
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 19:23:50 GMT

If you're not bothered by the door being inaccessible when the carriage hits the
bedroom ledge, why not rig it up as follows:

  |         chasm           |     ie there is one door
  |                         |     on the side, and ledges
 ------+               +------    which stick out a bit
       |               |ledge 2
ledge 1|               |
 ------+               +------
  |            door-> /  \  |
  |------------------|cab |-|
  |                   \__/  |

-- Olly Betts
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Open-Ended Game Engine
From: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:59:07 GMT
Reply-To: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

In article <1992Nov22.080637.13862@athena.mit.edu>,
rfermier@athena.mit.edu (Robert G Fermier) writes:
|> 
|> By non-linear, I mean that the player does not have to go through the
game in any
|> particular order, or for that fashion follow any particular "career track"
|> through the game.  In the example of a fantasy setting, the player
could become
|> an adventurer, a politician, a soldier, a merchant, or whatever and
the plots in
|> the game would tune themselves accordingly.  Similarly, depending on
the order in
|> which the player decided to deal with plots that presented
themselves, plots that
|> did not get dealt with would develop into different plots in the
player's absence.
|> 
|> What do you people out there think there would be in terms of
interest in such an
|> engine? 

Sounds fascinating! I'd be interested, for one!

Would you be willing to share any of your thoughts about how to design
and implement such a framework? If you're not worried about giving away
trade secrets, I'm sure it could be the starting point for a very
interesting discussion here!

|> Rob Fermier
|> rfermier@athena.mit.edu

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, Canterbury Univ., Christchurch, New Zealand
Internet: greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	+--------------------------------------
Spearnet: greg@nz.ac.canterbury.cosc	| A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a
Telecom:  +64 3 667 001 x6367  		| wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan Inc.
From: malirath@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Robert Fisher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Interfaces
Date: 20 Nov 92 09:27:48 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Nov14.033552.15936@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> oway@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>
>Has anyone here ever played a game called "The Prisoner" for the old Apple II?
>
 . . .
>
>Adrian Robert
>oway@cornella.cit.cornell.edu
>

Yeah! I really enjoyed that game. It was based on the TV serial of the
same name. Never got very far in it though.

I know what you're saying, Adrian. I have an idea or two for an adventure
game and can't decide whether I want to try to program a full-blown game
with an interesting interface or just go the text-based route. I really
haven't found a "modern" adventure that capture that same feel and...
"sense of wonder" (that was a good description, whoever came up with
it).

There are two things I really like about text-based games. (1) The sense
of open-endedness. In most cases, this is a false sense, but since you
type in command "sentences" instead of choosing from a finite set of
buttons (or other options) -- text-based games at least feel freer.
(2) Sure, I admire all those great artists in the computer-game market
today, but the imagination still provides a more exciting image.

One idea I had was to keep the basics of the text-based system, but add to
it a little. (Sort of like Beyond Zork, or was it Zork Zero...) I've
always thought that primative map-like graphics would help the player
visualize his surroundings. The hard-part is to make them representative
enough to be helpful, but abstract enough to not constrain the player's
imagination too much. (I'm not thinking of walking through dungeon
corridors when I play Nethack or Rogue, I'm thinking of this little
character moving about a computer screen.) Another idea (that I think
I've seen implemented before) is to expand the fairly common "status
bar". Make it the full description of the current room. I never liked
having to type "look" everytime I wanted to look at the room description
again. Some games have also stuck arcade-type puzzels into a text-adventure.

What other ways are there to expand the text-based adventure model?
-- 
		===========================================
		Robert Fisher / malirath@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
		===========================================
From: djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Searching for a sense of wonder
Date: 16 Nov 92 20:25:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: sdcc12.41085
Organization: =CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego

>Personally, I just wouldn't put an axe
>in the game.

Well, if in the MUD world, or at least those with multiple builders,
someone else may put the axe in without telling you :-) That's why a
lot of the commercial British MUDs have a better reputation - a
smaller set of coders leads to more coherency.


>OK, it's yours to cut apart.  What's the verdict on this puzzle?

Yikes!  Wouldn't have thought of the cutting the rope part unless
there was some sort of (you are x feet across).  And you won't swing
into the cave gently, probably shoot a few rooms further in.  More
description on carriage.  I would have thought it was hanging from the
rope (like a funicular), making it very difficult for it to tip over
by climbing on top.

Personally, I would have thought that the carriage was mechanical and
that pulling the lever might do something.  Maybe find another rope
somewhere, crawl across, tie rope to carriage, crawl back, then pull
carriage across.  Then perhaps if there are no controls inside
carriage, can cross over to opening normally without carriage in the
way.

-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
    Macintosh - you can buy better, but you can't pay more!
From: dag@hpsemc.cup.hp.com (David A Graves)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 20:52:09 GMT
Subject: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Organization: HP VAB Programs
From: krueger@galileo.physics.arizona.edu (Ted Krueger)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Adventure Definition Libraries
Date: 21 Nov 92 05:36:41 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson AZ

In article <3150116@hpsemc.cup.hp.com> dag@hpsemc.cup.hp.com (David A Graves) writes:
>Of the four most commonly discussed adventure languages (ADL, AdvSys, ALAN,
>and TADS), only ADL and TADS come with a set of standard definitions. 

I am a new reader of this group, so if this is a stupid question, please 
forgive me, but...Have you folks never used AGT?  It may be a little more 
restrictive than TADS, but it is extremely powerful and includes the 
standard definitions you talk about.

Ted



-- 
"We will bury you! We will bury you! We will bury you!"
      - some ex-Soviet leader            
                   krueger@galileo.physics.arizona.edu
From: dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Parser heresy (was Re: Searching for a sense of wonder)
Date: 18 Nov 1992 22:27:41 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: xbar.ai.mit.edu

In article <blasius.88.722034873@gmd.de> blasius@gmd.de (Volker Blasius) writes:
>>*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
>>>get the book from the troll
>>The troll sees your lame attempt from a mile away.  He laughs in your face.
>
>>>get the book from the troll very quickly
>>You snatch the book away with a lightning-fast jerk.
>
>Where is the problem? Does it complicate the game 
>too much? To use your example, should 'snatch the book from the troll' work,
>just because it is orthodox syntax? I just don't understand your argument.

My point was just that making puzzles where you *have* to use an adverb
to get "credit" for the solution seems like a bad idea from a
playability standpoint.  Can you image the player's response upon
hearing the solution?  "Oh, of course, I didn't 'take book from troll
*deftly*'!"

If you never rely on the extra syntax, you might as well not have it,
because it only serves to make the player's guess-the-vocab search
space bigger.  (And this is not how we want to make puzzles harder.)

Dave Baggett
--
dmb@ai.mit.edu           MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory                  
ADVENTIONS: interactive fiction (text adventures) for the 90's!
dmb@ai.mit.edu *** Compu$erve: 76440,2671 *** GEnie: ADVENTIONS
From: lippin@wish-bone.berkeley.edu (The Apathist)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Intelligence Assumptions
Date: 20 Nov 1992 02:13:12 GMT
Organization: Authorized Service, Incorporated
Reply-To: lippin@math.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: wish-bone.berkeley.edu

From the tinkling keys of gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington):

>Do we:
> --> open doors?

I say yes.  If the player's intent is to go through the door, you can
be sure he'd try to open it, and he'd have a reasonable expectation of
success.

> --> try all the keys we have in locked doors?

Probably not.  The clever player would likely just try the key whose
description matches the door.  ("A piece of well-worn masking tape is
wrapped around the large end of the key; you can just make out the
word "garage" in faded blue letters.")

But once the player has tried the key in the door and found it to
work, I think the game should remember that it works.  If the door
gets locked again, it should unlock it automatically the second time.
For a compelling argument, I refer you to the elevators in Planetfall.

> --> refuse to do things that would get us killed ("jump off ledge")?

Don't flatly refuse -- I jumped off a ledge in Zork Zero just to see
what I'd hit when I landed.  But I think it's good to warn people when
a command that would ordinarily be safe is now dangerous.  The player
might, for example, have lost track of what room he's in.

(Also, an undo command that works when you're dead can make the game
much more pleasant in these situations.)

					--Tom Lippincott
					  lippin@math.berkeley.edu

	"Please do not defeat this important safety feature."
From: djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Searching for a sense of wonder
Date: 15 Nov 92 22:55:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: sdcc12.41027
Organization: =CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego

>I could have killed the folks at Infocom for including
>hints on-line with their games!

Oh?  They forced you to read them? :-)

The only one I've seen with hints is zork zero, and it lets you
turn off hints for the rest of the game (including restored versions).
Haven't peeked yet.  Although Zork Zero is giving me lots of fun
without being tedious or frustrating.

Would have been nicer to have hints in a separate data file that could
be deleted though.  I gave my hint book to a friend for safekeeping
(and he refused to give me a straight answer when a later begged for a
hint on a frustrating beyondzork puzzle - although he did tell me that
I might try starting the game over, which was the correct solution)
-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu  --  How come my mind went off for lunch before I did?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Subject: Re: Searching for a sense of wonder
Reply-To: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:40:46 GMT

Some thoughts following from some thoughts expressed here recently...

Realistic vs. fantastic settings: Seems to me it doesn't matter
as long as there is a certain amount of internal consistency.
A universe where anything can happen doesn't make for good stories.
There need to be some restrictions, and those restrictions have to
be logical. In this regard, a fantasy-based adventure is probably
harder to create because there is more for the author to invent.

Using the computer better: One way is to make the games less linear,
less preprogrammed. In a typical adventure game, the player can't
do anything useful that the author hasn't thought of in advance.
Most puzzles have a single "right" solution which must
be deduced or guessed, and nothing else can possibly work.

E.g. getting through a locked door typically involves finding the
right key to unlock it.

In real life, faced with a locked door, there are many courses of
action available such as picking the lock, kicking the door,
removing the hinge pins, attacking it with an axe, etc. which are
perfectly feasible ways of addressing the problem.

I'd like to see an adventure system that *really* allowed you to
use your intellect to find novel solutions to problems, rather
than pre-arranged solutions to puzzles.

Such a game becomes more of a simulation, of course, and opens
up a whole canning factory of worms, as the discussions about
"naive physics" etc. show!

It would certainly deserve the title "interactive", though...

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, Canterbury Univ., Christchurch, New Zealand
Internet: greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	+--------------------------------------
Spearnet: greg@nz.ac.canterbury.cosc	| A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a
Telecom:  +64 3 667 001 x6367  		| wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan Inc.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction