HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: roger@oit.itd.umich.edu (Roger Espinosa)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Intelligence Assumptions
Date: 21 Nov 1992 22:48:21 GMT
Organization: Instructional Technology Laboratory, University of Michigan
NNTP-Posting-Host: helen.oit.itd.umich.edu

In article <oPmkuB13w165w@west.darkside.com> max@west.darkside.com (Erik Max Francis) writes:

>cause your character to die.  Otherwise it's just too easy to get out of 
>some situations.
>
>So you can UNDO to your heart's content _until_ you die.  Then you have 
>RESTORE (or give up).  That's the way _I_ would do it.

Why does "undoing" death make life any easier than doing a restore? Seems
to me that the only thing stopping anyone from doing a "save" was the slow
disc access times (and extremely limited number of saves allowed with 
Apple II Infocoms, at least! ;-), which isn't the case now.

I don't see, either, how undoing a death situation gives the player any
advantage -- you've only got one more clue, and if we're about to have doors
open up automatically (which is a great idea to me; I'm getting sick and 
tired of closing the microwave in "Lurking Horror," let me tell you), why
make someone retrack a game, *just* to get to the same point? Especially if
it's possible that there's a lot more backtracking to do from the point
before death, possibly.

Another voice from the camp that wants to see IF move away from implementation
puzzles (save restrictions, parser conundrums, the toils of ASCII VR, etc).

Roger 
:-)

>
>----------
>Erik Max Francis   Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt.  Coming soon:  UNIVERSE _ | _
>USmail:  1070 Oakmont Dr. #1 San Jose CA 95117  ICBM:  37 20 N  121 53 W _>|<_
>UUCP:  ..!apple!uuwest!max   Usenet:  max@west.darkside.com   464E4F5244   |


Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik)
Subject: Re: So you want to write a text adventure?
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 01:12:19 GMT

Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu> writes:

>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.

I doubt it.  He has turned down offers to port TADS to the Amiga, because
he doesn't own an Amiga.  (At least this is what an Amiga owner who made such
an offer told me).  He's running a professional operation here and has to
be able to support and upgrade what he sells.  And he's into making money from
his program ... which is fine with me, since it allows him to sell it with
great manuals and lots of support.

(An Apple 2 version?  Hey, then a TRS-80 version should be a snap!)

The trouble is, all of us here are such computer wizzes that what we *really*
want to do is write our own Adventure systems!  Much more fun than writing a
game, after all.  (Hey, just yesterday I was thinking about writing an
adventure parser for Cherokee -- a language in which the physical properties
of objects are reflected in the words.  "You can't drink that ... it doesn't
have a 'liquid' prefix!")

- David Librik
librik@cory.Berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: Slow noun resolution in TADS
Keywords: tads slow noun resolution
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 07:48:33 GMT

 [stuff about TADS resolving ambiguous nouns slowly and possible
solutions]

 I've also discussed this problem briefly with Mike Roberts.
Unfortunately having floating objects doesn't work terribly well for
my doors. I came up with the notion of 1 wall, 1 ceiling and such for
interior locations and track the state of each one independently, but
I can't do that for doors. Most of my doored locations contain more
than one. So I need to have some way of distinguishing between the
two. If the user says "Open door" the program should respond "Which
door do you mean? The bookshop door or the disco's door?" I can't
simply solve the problem by having only one door per location, as then
I'll have to double my locations which would be unwieldy and
unrealistic.

 Anyone have any ideas? This door problem is a major major stumbling
block for me. (well, apart from the more general issue of having
insufficient time to work on the thing...)

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: Parser heresy (was Re: Searching for a sense of wonder)
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:38:06 GMT

blasius@gmd.de (Volker Blasius) writes:

>To be honest, I can and I saw it in WORLD: some things you had to do slowly 
>or cautiously or some such, and it seemed quite natural to me - life isn't 
>just a binary do-don't. 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.

 I've thought about the adverb thing, and I suppose it would be rather
nice sometimes to permit adverbs. But they do open a particularly
large and wriggly tin of worms. It's bad enough having to code in
everything silly that a player might do without having to worry about
adverbs as well. There's also the danger of making needlessly nitpicky
puzzles. (ie if: "GENTLY LIFT THE RUBBER CHICKEN OFF THE MANTELPIECE"
worked but "TENTATIVELY LIFT..." didn't I think the player would have
good reason to be annoyed.

 Of course, I think it would be nice if TADS (since I use TADS) had a
class of words that were simply ignored. You could type in unnecessary
adverbs if you felt like it, and the game would just cut them out.
Just another way of getting rid of that irritating "SORRY, I DON'T
KNOW WHAT 'OBSEQUIOUSLY' (or whatever) MEANS." error message.

 Anyway, now that I think about it I think that adding adverb support
might be complicated but could add an interesting new dimension.
Perhaps you could set up a class of adverbs that are all ignored, and
only certain key adverbs for specific verbs would be parsed. Then you
could have intelligent responses to commands like DROP FRAGILE CRYSTAL
CHANDELIER. Always kind of bugged me that you could drop anything in a
text adventure instead of, say, PUT DOWN, and not break anything.

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: scythe@byron.u.washington.edu (The Grim Reaper)
Subject: Query- Where to find ALAN?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 02:05:00 GMT

The subject says it all.  How do I get a copy of Alan (for unix)?
Is it FTPable from anywhere?

Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu>
Subject: Re: Searching for a sense of wonder
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A72D8D91FB013165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Mon, 16 Nov 92 22:40:33 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:37:51 GMT

In article <BxttrL.E6x@acsu.buffalo.edu> Phil Goetz,
goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu writes:
>3.  (You're going to scream at this one.)  Adventures just don't present
you
>with situations where you even WANT to use most grammatical constructs.
>Observe a 2-year old baby.  This baby gets what it wants in the world
with
>2 or 3-word utterances, i.e. "Go!  Get egg!" or "Want more doggie!" 
You, in
>the adventure, are like that baby.  The ways you want to interact with
the
>world are quite restricted.  You are giving orders to a puppet.

Yes!  This is the reason why true interactive fiction is impossible. 
Puzzles are really the simplest challenge possible to implement within a
game.  I can think of no puzzle which can not be solved with simple
sentences.  Take Towers of Hanoi -- the best algorithm is about nine
lines of code long, and to represent it in English it is no more
difficult than "Move A to C, Move B to C, move C to A," etc.  I apologize
for my loose word of the use parser -- I've written a number of syntactic
parsers myself, and I admit they are extremely simple once the basic
principles are known.  It's the semantics which can be hell, and you just
tapped the surface.  Try to teach a computer to know that "the king is
pregnant" is a ridiculous premise.  Try to inform a computer that when
you say "I saw the golden gate bridge flying into San Francisco," you are
not trying to redefine the meaning of "suspension bridge."

-- Russ
From: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Intelligence Assumptions
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:43:36 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
NNTP-Posting-Host: b63519.student.cwru.edu

In article <GNAT.92Nov19215055@kauri.kauri.vuw.ac.nz> gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington) writes:
>Do we:
> --> open doors?

Generally, I would say yes. Definately yes if there are many doors around -- 
Moonmist is a good example of this. If you have just a few doors, and you 
want the player to take notice of them, you may want to have the player do 
it the hard way.

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

Probably not. Using a key in a door is a puzzle, even if it is a minor one.

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

"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.
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
| Damien Neil | dpn2@po.cwru.edu | Case Western Reserve University |
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
From: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Parser heresy (was Re: Searching for a sense of wonder)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:55:15 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
NNTP-Posting-Host: b63519.student.cwru.edu

In article <blasius.88.722034873@gmd.de> blasius@gmd.de (Volker Blasius) writes:
>In article <1ea71uINNkv1@life.ai.mit.edu> dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
>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.
>
>>*** Your score just went up ***
>>*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
>
>>I have one thing to say:  "NOT!"
>
>To be honest, I can and I saw it in WORLD: some things you had to do slowly 
>or cautiously or some such, and it seemed quite natural to me - life isn't 
>just a binary do-don't. 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.

If you give a command to the actor, you expect it to carry it out to the 
best of its ability. When you tell it so take a book away from the troll, 
you assume that the action will be carried out in the most appropriate 
fashion, i.e. very quickly. If you get a message telling you that you were 
not able to steal the book, a logical conclusion would be that the troll is 
faster than the actor.

Problems that require an adverb to work are syntactical juggling rather than 
logical puzzles. Now, if a clue was given at some point that an adverb was 
required, that would be a different matter. However, such usage should still 
be discouraged since it has not been customary in the past.

A puzzle should have a logical solution. The old game of "guess what the 
author _really_ wanted you to type" grows old very quickly...
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
| Damien Neil | dpn2@po.cwru.edu | Case Western Reserve University |
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: jeras@oracle.com (John Eras)
Subject: Re: So you want to write a text adventure?
Organization: Oracle Corp., Belmont CA
	<1992Nov16.021205.16797@starbase.trincoll.edu> <41084@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>
	<1ea66qINNkr6@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 02:54:50 GMT
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 <1ea66qINNkr6@life.ai.mit.edu> dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) writes:
   In article <41084@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson) writes:
   >Yep.  Better than spending years on a similar system in order to get
   >something people could use.  Right now, TADS and any adventures
   >people have written in TADS (even adventures people want to give
   >away for free) are *useless* to me and many other people.

   This will become a moot point in the near future.  The system *will*
   get ported to Unix and to the Amiga once 2.0 is released.  My
   impression is that Mike didn't want people to port 1.X since 2.0 was
   just around the corner.  So don't give up hope.  There are certain
   factions that *very much* want to see their games run under Unix,
   AmigaOS, and any other OS that can display text.  (We won't mention any
   names, but they would even consider a port to Acme BogOs.)

I'm sure both Mike and this mysterious unnamed person (and lots of other
people besides) all want the same thing in an ideal world -- i.e., having
TADS run on every platform with tons of satisfied users and smiles all
around...

But I think it's a little more complicated than this.  There are some
things High Energy would have to consider before allowing other people
to do TADS ports, such as:

  - How do you compensate the porter(s)?  Should they get anything besides
    the pleasure of using TADS on their favorite BitMaster 2000 (tm)
    machine.
  - Who sells the new product?  High Energy or the porter?
  - Who supports the new product?  High Energy can't.  What if the porter
    is not prepared to do this either?  What incentive would the porter
    have for supporting the product?
  - How do you deal with bug fixes and upgrades?  This could be a real
    coordination hassle.
  - Etc., etc.

One of the advantages of High Energy doing all the ports in-house is
that they can maintain the high quality of the product, support their
users, and release their products on each of the supported platforms at
the same time.

You sounded pretty sure that there would be other TADS ports in the
future (I presume you've talked to Mike about this).  I just don't know
if you should necessarily rely on this, but feel free to correct me if
you know better.

--
jeras@us.oracle.com
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: <A72C6E4462013165@downes1-101.dynamic.trincoll.edu>
X-Xxdate: Sun, 15 Nov 92 02:14:44 GMT
Organization: Starving Writers of America (sole member)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:12:05 GMT

In article <41028@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> Darin Johnson, djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu
writes:
>So post the code and let people port it :-)

Have you ever actually built an application?  Have you ever spent years
working on the source code for a game?  It's not so easy then to just
"post the code."

And since Mike is distributing TADS as shareware, why would he want
everyone to see how he implemented the game?  Understand that a lot of
people could use his algorithms, adjust his parser just a bit, and make
some of their own modifications, thus completely legally creating their
own application while doing a third of the work.  Does that sound like a
very inviting proposition to you?

-- Russ
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:42:54 EST
From: Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Tricky adventure stuff, was Re: Bubblyhotrock (was Sense of Wonder)
 <1992Nov16.141439.1777@starbase.trincoll.edu>

>>Also, it is necessary to allow for all other objects that could be
>brought
>>to this location.  For example, if I had a 80+ foot rope, I might try ...

Might I just interject that this is probably one of the hardest things
to take into account in an adventure game, IMHO.

For example. If you give the player a ladder, say, you're just asking for
trouble. In addition to using the ladder to get up to that little hole in
the wall in the Rock Room, it can also be used to climb up and down any
short enough incline, it can be used to cross any chasm shorter than it is,
it can be used to get through the transom of a door, if you get a good swing
in with it you can damage nearly anything, you can chop it up and use it for
firewood... you get the picture. And don't get me started on what an
enterprising player might do with a coil of rope...

If the writer tries to take into account the many places where a ladder,
rope, knife, or whatever would come in handy, then it's a major plus for
the game. It's just something to watch out for.

Second, semi-unrelated point:

All deaths should be avoidable. That is -- and this tends to be forgotten
a lot -- if the adventure is supposed to have even the slightest relation
to reality, then ideally, a sufficiently observant and cautious protagonist
would be able to wend their way through it without dying once. IE, no
invisible sudden traps, no auto-death rooms, no ropes that unexpectedly
break and drop you into the Fiery Pit of Doom, etc.

I've been designing puzzles for the game I'm thinking of, and trying very
hard to avoid these senseless deaths. Near the end, for example, you must
get through an entrance hall into an alien spaceship, but guarding the
entrance is a gunpod consisting of a machine gun and energy cannon mounted
in the ceiling. Both weapons track and behave differently and I've been
working out how to subtly clue the player in on how they work, so that
s/he can successfully solve it -- it involves a robot holovid set, a Kevlar
vest, and a Lazy Susan and is somewhat complex... it's tough going, but
worth the thought.

Of course, the player will probably get killed a dozen times ATTEMPTING
to solve the puzzle, but what's important is that it is possible to figure
it out the first time.

 "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.bodyart
From: osiris@athena.mit.edu (Marcel Bruchez Jr.)
Subject: Re: Know any Long Island,NY tatoo places?
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:15:00 GMT

ecavanagh@hamp.hampshire.edu asks about places in NY or LI with good
reputations for tattoos...

I think Fun City Tattoos is pretty good.  If you want blackwork, I have heard
that Jonathan Shaw there is the one to see...This is just what I have heard,
but his work really looks classy (from what I have seen).

-Marcel 
osiris@athena.mit.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart
From: ebail@ctp.com (Erik Bailey)
Subject: When can you have a nipple pierce stretched?
Organization: Cambridge Technology Partners
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:54:33 GMT


Hi y'all... I got my nipples pierced at Gauntlet NYC about 1.5 months ago
(14ga niobium), and at some point want to move up to a thicker ring
(probably 12ga -- 10ga is a bit bigger than I want right now). The question
is -- when is the best time to do this? I'm assuming not anytime in the
next six months or so (considering my pierces are still healing somewhat),
so a) when is best, and b) if there's no set time, how do you know?

Also, what are the stretching techniques? Is it similar to getting a new
pierce from scratch, or is it just squeezing a too-big ring into a
too-small hole?

Just curious... adTHANKSvance --Erik

-- 
Erik Bailey   | Cambridge Technology Partners      | The usual disclaimer
              | 304 Vassar St., Cambridge MA 02139 | applies: this post is
ebail@ctp.com | (617) 374-8418                     | mine, not my employer's.
      /earth is 98% full; please remove any excess inhabitants.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart
From: tjreynol@zephyr.cair.du.edu (five left and cut!)
Subject: Re: Colouring areola
Organization: University of Denver
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 01:22:11 GMT

I know a gal that does Cosmetic Tattooing, eyeliner and lips.
If I see her, I'll ask, in the meantime, look in the Yellow
Pages under Tattoo, and look for Cosmetic in an ad; won't hurt
to ask.

TIm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart
Subject: Re: Colouring areola
From: jmeyers@vax2.winona.msus.edu (Jim)
Date: 23 Nov 92 10:11:59 -0600
Followup-To: rec.arts.bodyart
Distribution: world

In article <By013u.L50@mach1.wlu.ca>, jcarr4@mach1.wlu.ca (judy carr 9207
U) wrote:
> 
> A question for a friend:
> 
> She has very light coloured aeroli (sp?) and wonders if there is any way to
> darken them permanently (or perhaps semi-permanently, like some hair
> colouring).  Or....is there any cosmetic that will not rub off on her
> clothing?  
> 
> Perhaps this isn't quite 'bodyart', but does anyone have any suggestions?
> 
> Thanks!
>  

One of my tattoo artists performs this sort of work for women who have had
breast surgery.  The clinic performing the surgery has hired her as a
professional consultant and associate in this matter.  She has since
expanded her service to any woman who wants her aureola colored.  Regarding
the pain, yes, it is considerable. My aureola are tattooed (I'm a male),
and because my
nipples are rather sensitive, the experience was very uncomfortable.  Oh,
and a note to Paul, I also have a genital tattoo (shaft only), and this
actually
hurt a lot less than the rib cage work I had done.

Jim
Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart
From: jyaruss@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: Tattooeist in Mass. area?
Organization: Hampshire College
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:03:54 GMT

Hi,
I'm currently living in Amherst, Mass. and I've been wanting to get a tattoo
for a couple years now. Is there anywhere within an hour, maybe two, from here
that does good, reasonably priced, safe work -- perhaps someone that is into
wolves - cuz that's what I want. 
Thanks a trillion,
-Jordan
Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart
From: selvidge@ide.com (Leah Selvidge)
Subject: Cynthia Witkin tattoos
Originator: selvidge@demo
Organization: Interactive Development Environments, SF
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 20:03:13 GMT

The biggest glitch of all... forgetting to leave my e-mail adress...

leah@ide.com

Thanks for your patience.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart