HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bbs.lar@tsoft.sf-bay.org (Larry Greenfield)
Subject: Patrick Yip
Organization: The TSoft BBS and Public Access Unix, +1 415 969 8238
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 02:49:06 GMT

Sorry for the bandwidth guys, but Patrick!  My response to your email 
bounced! I'm not ignoring you... send me a 1-line post so I can reply to 
you via email!
:::::Larry:::::

--
Larry Greenfield (bbs.lar@tsoft.sf-bay.org)
From: kuo@sumax.seattleu.edu (Chih-Ping Kuo)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga
Subject: Re: Viz's Ranma to continue
Date: 6 Nov 92 07:16:41 GMT
Organization: Seattle University, Seattle, WA

From article <michaele.0263@nagisa.nsg.com.au>, by michaele@nagisa.nsg.com.au (Michael J. Edwards):
> As I predicted Viz are going to start shipping Ranma 1/2 Part 2 Issue 1 in
> January.  At present they are claiming it will be an eleven issue series.

11 parts? that means the story of Kodachi and the skating pair will be 
covered, don't think that will be enough to cover the story of Shampoo.

-- 
*********************************************************************
Ping Kuo			"There is not enough darkness in all    
kuo@sumax.seattleu.edu		 the world to put out the light of  
standard disclaimer applied   	 one small candle." 	 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: jondr@sco.COM (Desi The Three-Armed Wonder Comic)
Subject: Re: OK, OK, OK, this is Alan...
Reply-To: jondr@sco.com
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1992 19:14:58 GMT


I am not thoni@ida.liu.se (Thomas Nilsson).  I didn't say:
>I'm sorry if you felt attacked. That was certainly not my intension. I
>didn't mean to say 'you can't do good things without Alan' either ;-).
>
>My point was merely to indicate how much (little) work that *need* to
>be done to do that particular thing in Alan. I also said that your
>code was probably a lot more versatile (but larger).

right.  i didn't feel attacked.  i merely wanted to demonstrate how to do a
common operation in advsys.  there are some people out there who would
rather program in a more detailed environment because they enjoy the greater
degree of control afforded them.  i know i have tailored my advsys games
down to the lowest level and i wouldn't like to work in a system that didn't
allow that degree of control.

sorry if anyone's feathers got ruffled, it was simply for demonstration
purposes.  i wasn't trying to sell anyone on anything...


-- 
Jon Drukman (God's personal DJ)                 uunet!sco!jondr   jondr@sco.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are pond scum with PhDs who murder bunnies and make them take the SATs!!
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 19:33:07 EST
From: Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: {Re: Re: Adv. generators}, Puzzles & Pulp IF
 <BxKq2w.IKD@acsu.buffalo.edu><1992Nov12.203225.14960@pollux.lu.se>
 <1dv99tINN8qb@life.ai.mit.edu> <JAMIE.92Nov14093637@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>

In article <JAMIE.92Nov14093637@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>, jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz
(Jamieson Norrish) says:
>I think that rather than creativity being almost totally
>unconstrained, the need to justify what you create is missing, or at
>least in many cases. I don't think this is a good thing; I would much
>rather find an ordinary object in an ordinary setting, which had a
>reason for being there, than finding an amazing object in an amazing
>place, with absolutely no justification for it being there.

Actually, _my_ preference is for finding an amazing object in an ordinary
setting. This sort of thing is the basis for nearly all of my favorite
adventures, books, movies, et cetera... I might go so far as to state that
(for me) a primary ingredient in the "sense of wonder" is that said wonderful
thing COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN to the real world.

Thus, in Trinity: you start out in completely ordinary London, 198-, when
what should you happen on in the middle of a nuclear war but a plain white
door leading to a bizarrely fantastic landscape. In Hitchhiker's Guide
your sleep in an ordinary house on ordinary old Earth is rudely disrupted
by the arrival of an alien space fleet intent on destroying the planet. In
Planetfall, the dull life of a Ensign Ninth Class in the Stellar Patrol is
ended as you tumble upon an undiscovered planet full of secrets. And so on.

As I said before -- if a game starts out in the "real world" but jumps into its
totally amazing world from there, it's already stacked up a lot of points with
me.

 "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: Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu>
Subject: So you want to write a text adventure?
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A725201EF9023165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Tue, 10 Nov 92 13:15:26 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 13:13:06 GMT


After mentioning, in passing, the availability of the source code for
Deep Space Drifter, I received a surprising number of requests for it. 
So the idea came to me -- if all these people are trying to suffer
through TADS by examining source code (and I will be the first to admit
that it can be a struggle), why wouldn't somebody come forward to teach
folks how to do it?

With this in mind, I invite anyone interested in TADS to sign themselves
up for a course I will be running in the near future.  The first lesson
will be sent out two weeks from today, and new lessons will come every
two weeks afterwards starting on January 15th.  While the course will
begin with the basics of TADS programming, later lessons will aid you in
first developing the concept for, and then actually creating a TADS
adventure of your own.

There is no charge for these lessons.  My only aim is to pull IF out of
the mire of neat graphics and back into the glory of text in which it was
originally born and in which it enjoyed its golden age.

-- Russ

P.S. The reason the course does not go into full swing until January 15th
is because I am awaiting the release of TADS 2.0 before pumping you all
full of outdated information.  Please include the quote from the bottom
of page 5 of the manual with your request for the course -- in other
words, only registered users need reply.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: fxmlk@acad3.alaska.edu (KIENENBERGER MIKE L)
Subject: Re: So you want to write a text adventure?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41.UAC
Organization: University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 14:14:00 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.194125.27132@starbase.trincoll.edu>,
Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu> writes...
>In article <1992Nov10.161306.1805@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> James E Crawford,
>crawford@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu writes:
>>2) Are there any IF "languages" which support collaborative writing 
>>(ie. the "user" has the opportunity to add on to the existing world,
>>thus creating a dynamic environment)?
> 
>You're looking for a Thieve's World version of interactive fiction, I
>suppose, and although I can see no reason why it couldn't work, no such
>project has been attempted, or at least not with TADS.  There ARE a
>number of games within the Unkuulian world for TADS, but they are all
>self-sufficient and separately coded.

Actually, this is the idea around many of the "MUD"-type programs.  Most of
these types of programs have a language which allows players to remodel the
world around them.  It also shows how difficult it is to create such a game
with collaborative writing. 
=============================================================================
-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: rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu (Russell L. Bryan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Searching for a sense of wonder
Date: 13 Nov 92 14:01:09 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A7291FEC8E013165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Fri, 13 Nov 92 14:03:40 GMT
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12

I've had this feeling come upon me many times while playing games --
looking at a puzzle, struggling with it, discovering the solution and
then saying to myself, "that was pretty logical."  What I want to do is
jump up in the air, do a couple of flips and immediately call up the
author to congratulate him on a puzzle to be added to the truly great
puzzles in IF history.  There are rarely opportunities to do that, and
honestly, no game ever made me feel that way until I played Trinity.

Now that I'm designing my own text adventure, I want others toave the
same sense of amazement at the puzzles, but I want to add something which
other IF is missing.  There is a tendency to take monsters attacking you
and such with stride, but when it comes to suspense, most interactive
fiction lumps it all at the climcactic finish.  Why not make someone
sweat in the beginning of the game?  How about the middle?  A good story
CAN be disguised by a facade of pulp.  If I can make just one person
swear in frustration, or have someone say to a friend, "Hey, come check
this out," or receive mail from one player asking me for a hint because
"he'll die if he doesn't find out how this thing ends," then I will have
succeeded in my attempt to create the "sense of wonder" which made
interactive fiction stick around all this time in the first place.

-- Russ
From: adam@owlnet.rice.edu (Adam Justin Thornton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Has anyone tried OASYS?
Date: 12 Nov 92 23:48:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: rice.BxMnGG.5L3
Organization: Milo's Meadow

Something was posted a little while ago on one of the archives groups about
OASYS, an object-oriented adventure authoring system.  Has anyone tried it?
How is it?

Adam
-- 
"And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, |++| adam@rice.edu |++| Cthulhu
 Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead." --Joan Baez  | 64,928 | fthagn!
"Very often, a common stone, thrown away and despised, is worth more than
 a cow." -- Paracelsus | If these were Rice's opinions I'd shoot myself.
From: dag@hpsemc.cup.hp.com (David A Graves)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Re: Adventure generators (skippable)
Date: 10 Nov 92 19:03:16 GMT
Organization: HP VAB Programs


Morpheus Nosferatu asked:

> Has anyone ever worked on, or even heard of, an adventure generator?

Phil Goetz replied:

> The generator you speak of is not written, not being written, and not
> anywhere on the horizon.  In 50 years, maybe.  In 20, definitely not.

I think Phil forgot to add the phrase "In my opinion".  I hate to see anyone
squash enthusiasm for pursuing the goals of automating personality or 
automating plot synthesis, stating their opinions as fact.

I agree with Phil that the problems associated with automating character
behavior and plot synthesis are challenging, but in my opinion, they are
certainly not insurmountable.  As an "existence proof", I offer the following:

My first adventure game generator was completed in 1981.  It was the
initialization module for a multi-user, realtime, text adventure game called
"Quest".  The layout of the adventure was different every time; descriptions
varied, computer controlled characters varied, and the goal of the players
(the quest) varied.  The generator selected location, character, and object
descriptions from a large library of colorful text, giving it a feeling of
being "authored" rather than "computer generated".  The puzzles were not as
complex as those seen in InfoCom games, but the element of multiple
intelligent players added complexity, and therefore increased the challenge
and fun.  Up to twenty players would enter the adventure, each of us in our
own office, so that contact between players was through the computer interface
only.  It was tremendous fun, and much of my work in IF over the years has
been an attempt to capture that excitment in a single-user IF environment.

Phil summed up with:

> This problem is what Stuart Shapiro calls "AI-complete":  Solving it
> would be equivalent to solving all the other problems of AI.

I do not agree.  Synthesis of character behavior and plot twists need not
rely on the computer being creative.  Rather, we need only create a good
library of plot and character elements, and devise good algorithms for
assembling them.  I'm not trying to solve the old problems of computer
intelligence; I'm working on methods for good illusions.

David Graves
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: More on ALAN
From: Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 03:41:17 EST
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy

The more I use this system, the more I like it. What I had thought were
limitations usually come down with a little pushing, and the system
turns out to be remarkably flexible.

Anyway, I've cracked doing ACTORs under ALAN. As an exercise, I managed to
implement Floyd from Infocom's Planetfall... you can do all the stuff with
the ALAN-ized Floyd that you can do with the real one (turning him off
and on, having him follow you and carry objects, et cetera.)

Pondering this, I find myself wondering if there is any interest in my
making this example available. I was considering posting it, but with
all the equipment and code required to make it a complete running adventure
(there's three rooms and a few objects for you and Floyd to mess around with)
it's about 15K (200 lines)...

If there is interest, though, e-mail me, and I can clean it up and post it.

 "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.
From: dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: {Re: Re: Adv. generators}, Puzzles & Pulp IF
Date: 13 Nov 1992 04:01:01 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: case.ai.mit.edu

In article <1992Nov12.203225.14960@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>Sure, that's why it's called interactive *fiction*, as opposed to
>"puzzle solving games". There are some games (Fool's Errand and Three
>of one (?) for the Mac leap to mind) that are basically a collection of
>puzzles, with little or nothing of a story to tie them together. Nice,
>but quite different from IF.

But when it comes down to it, an IF game better have a good dose of
clever, challenging, and logical puzzles; otherwise most people will
find it boring.  In fact I think there's a very delicate balance
between exposition (i.e., of plot, setting, and characters) and
the interactive stuff (puzzles).  Amusingly enough, this is captured
well in the name of the genre: interactive fiction.

The best we can do now with the interactive part is clever puzzles.
Perhaps introducing new ways in which these games can be interactive is
part of what Phil sees as "advancing computer fiction to the point
where we can dispense with exotic locales, otherwordly events and
characters, or high-action scenarios."

Personally, I think any major improvement will be a tall order.  (In
other words, I'm not holding my breath.)

>And there's a term for what many (most?) IF players seem to be after -
>Sense of Wonder.

This does seem to be true, now that you mention it.  But conversely,
wondrous places are easy places to create adventures.  To put it
simply, it's hard to find a reason why there'd be a Cheez Door or a
blessed +6 ring of Totally Kick-Butt Firebolts just lying around on the
street somewhere.  But once you change to a fantasy setting, such
things are acceptable without explanation!  In a fantasy setting,
creativity is almost totally unconstrained.

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
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu>
Subject: My Lord ...
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A729D7CA7A013165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Fri, 13 Nov 92 03:08:10 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1992 03:05:38 GMT

FORMAL RETRACTION

Forget what I just posted about charging for the course.  Apparently,
Internet mail services don't allow such profitable enterprises.

Anyone who knows with whom I may complain or negotiate, please give me a
name or two.  

In particular, I would like to know if anyone can give me a yea or nay on
doing the course as a form of shareware.

-- Russ
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: <A7257B222C023165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Tue, 10 Nov 92 19:43:46 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:41:25 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.161306.1805@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> James E Crawford,
crawford@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu writes:
>1) What programs are available to create IF and more importantly,
>where can I get them? I have a Mac and access to a 486; I'd prefer
>to work on the Mac though....

OK, TADS is the one I use, and there are version available for both Mac
and IBM.  I would suggest that you wait a month before buying it, as
version 2.0 will soon be released.

>2) Are there any IF "languages" which support collaborative writing 
>(ie. the "user" has the opportunity to add on to the existing world,
>thus creating a dynamic environment)?

You're looking for a Thieve's World version of interactive fiction, I
suppose, and although I can see no reason why it couldn't work, no such
project has been attempted, or at least not with TADS.  There ARE a
number of games within the Unkuulian world for TADS, but they are all
self-sufficient and separately coded.

If you wished to do what you've suggested in TADS, you would probably
want to create a "shell" world with certain locations, rooms, items, and
characters who would run throughout the world in question.  It would be
up to the individual writer to adjust that world in the desired manner,
but the "shell" of rooms and actors and such could be used over and over
again ad inifinitum.

TADS, incidentally, is an object-oriented language, so it is very
conducive do this kind of manipulation.

-- Russ
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu>
Subject: MacMud?
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A7281BDB74013165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 12 Nov 92 19:34:03 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:31:37 GMT

Where can I get some MadMud libs?  I've got a server with an icon which
looks damn interesting, and absolutely no way to find out what the damn
thing does!  Are there docs out there?

-- Russ
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: <A725BD6E38013165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Tue, 10 Nov 92 00:26:38 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:24:15 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.223307.12111@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> James E Crawford,
crawford@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu writes:
>Where can I get TADS and (roughly) what price range am I looking at?

 I KNOW that it is available by anonymous FTP from sumex-aim and
Umichigan, for the Mac, and I'd be willing to bet the same places would
carry the IBM version if that's what you need.  If not, it is a $40.00
shareware item available from:

High Energy Software
P.O. Box 50422
Palo Alto, CA 94033

Incidentally, version 2.0 (the present version is 1.2) will be released
within a month -- I suggest you wait until an announcement concerning it
before sending in your fee.

-- Russ
From: crawford@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (James E Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: So you want to write a text adventure?
Date: 10 Nov 92 16:13:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: jhunix.1992Nov10.161306.1805
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

This is probably a FAQ, but I am a writer interested in working on
some interactive fiction in some format or another....

1) What programs are available to create IF and more importantly,
where can I get them? I have a Mac and access to a 486; I'd prefer
to work on the Mac though....

2) Are there any IF "languages" which support collaborative writing 
(ie. the "user" has the opportunity to add on to the existing world,
thus creating a dynamic environment)?

Any help would be appreciated.

Jim
From: MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu (Mark 'Mark' Sachs)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: ALAN Floyd code is coming.
Date: 12 Nov 92 21:41:16 GMT
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy

OK, I've gotten enough requests that I figure I'll upload and post the thing
(200 lines or so isn't THAT long...) later today.

Essentially, the problem with implementing Floyd in ALAN was that using
verbs with both objects and actors (for example, you want to be allowed
to try to TAKE Floyd as well as TAKE the small widget) is rather awkward.
I solved the problem by having an object "Floyd" and an actor "real_floyd"
that follows him everywhere and handles his scripted actions.

BTW, this code contains a number of workarounds for quirks in ALAN 2.3. Since
ALAN 2.4, which fixes nearly all of those quirks, is coming out in a week or
two, some of the code is likely to become obsolete. Still, I think it might
provide a useful example of what you can do with ALAN.

 "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.
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: {Re: Re: Adv. generators}, Puzzles & Pulp IF
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 20:32:25 GMT

In article <BxKq2w.IKD@acsu.buffalo.edu> goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz) writes:
>Strangely, I find I remember the general mood of good adventures before I
>can recall the specific puzzles.  Probably a hint that we really don't play
>for the puzzles.  

Sure, that's why it's called interactive *fiction*, as opposed to
"puzzle solving games". There are some games (Fool's Errand and Three
of one (?) for the Mac leap to mind) that are basically a collection of
puzzles, with little or nothing of a story to tie them together. Nice,
but quite different from IF.

>Perhaps computer fiction has not yet advanced to the point where we can
>dispense with exotic locales, otherwordly events and characters, or
>high-action scenarios.  That is, we're still pulp comics.

You may have a point there, but I'd prefer to compare to SF / Fantasy
rather than to pulp comics. And there's a term for what many (most?)
IF players seem to be after - Sense of Wonder. (I've got a feeling
there must be a connection between being a hacekr and liking SF&F).

I don't think we should speak about IF being primitive because its
devotees are looking for Sense of Wonder. In that case, you should
judge e.g. Tolkein and Zelazny as primitive pulp literature, and wait
for the SF & F genres to "advance" to a state of total drabness.
<Shudder>.  

Magnus Olsson                   | \e+      /_
Dept. of Theoretical Physics    |  \  Z   / q
University of Lund, Sweden      |   >----<           
Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se     |  /      \===== g
Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52          | /e-      \q