HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: coram@ed.ecn.purdue.edu (Chaosmage)
Subject: Re: VPM translation
Organization: Shadow Walker's Anonymous
Reply|to: coram@ecn.purdue.edu (Chaosmage)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 23:51:18 GMT

In article <80651@ut-emx.uucp> chrismg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (christian gadeken) writes:
>I seem to recall from last semester someone saying they were
>going to translate the Vampire Princess Miyu manga.  Has this
>gotten hung up for some reason?  It's still in the "Forthcoming
>Manga" section of the ftp site periodic post.

Erk.  I think I may have said something like that at one time.  I've started
to, but have discovered I just don't understand enough Japanses to do a 
good job.  I'm not even half way through chapter one, and I've already found
several grammatical patterns I have no clue about as well as several words
that I have to go to the library to look up as my dictionary doesn't have
them.

What *I'm* hoping is that someone else is doing it, and will mail *me* a
copy :-)

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Kevin C. Coram | INTERNET: coram@ecn.purdue.edu | CompuServe: 72567,2201 |
| "Don't tell me I'm nuts.  I know.  It keeps me sane."                    |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga
From: michaele@nagisa.nsg.com.au (Michael J. Edwards)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga
Subject: Ah! My Goddess! CD
Date: 29 Sep 92 22:56:32 GMT
Organization: Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

One the many interesting things I picked up this weekend was the Ah! My
Goddess! CD which is combination of a short drama piece with music
interweaved.  Being nonfluent in Japanese [well in fact I'm even less 
than nonfluent :-)]  I can only give as much info about as I can glean...

The cover has Urd and Skuld with Belldandi on the back. The CD has 17
tracks of which 8 are the story [those who are quick with maths will
realise this means that there are 9 songs :-)]  The story has something to
do with a motorcycle race [good thing I know what a motorcycle sounds like
:-)] and Marler makes an appearence (or is that an listenance?:-) I think...

The music is a mix of instrumentals and vocal tracks.  I like it alot but 
as my tastes run from New Order to Motorhead to Louie Armstrong to Yothi Yindi
your mileage may very :-)  

Its on SM Records catalogue number SM-153.  If there is interest, the music,
drama and voice artist details are in English and I'll post them as well...

Of course what I'd really like to see is a translation of the dialogue! :-)

Michael
[Don't forget to send in your top 10 votes! To: nsg.nsg.com.au!nagisa!manga]
--
Michael Edwards   "Yant el our ou"      Work: michaele@nsg.nsg.com.au
Node: nagisa                            Home: nsg.nsg.com.au!nagisa!michaele
Equipment: Amiga 2000 & GVP'30 33Mhz  OpSys: WB2.04  Running: AmigaUUCP 1.16
Addictions:  anime, comics, homebrew, manga, Mighty Empires & mountain bikes
Xref: sparky rec.arts.manga:1176 rec.arts.comics.marketplace:2837
From: t_yamasi@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp (Yamashiki Tsuyoshi)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga,rec.arts.comics.marketplace
Subject: Video Girl Ai Vol.3 found
Date: 5 Oct 92 05:53:59 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Computer Center, Sophia Univ., Tokyo, Japan

Yes, I found it.
First come, first served...
I'd charge 1130 yens (air) or 710 yens (ship) (p&p inclusive).
I accept payment by yens or US dollars, but not check.
Anyway email me first.
-- 
Tsuyoshi Yamashiki, lost boy in cyber space.
From: john@gu.uwa.edu.au (John West)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 07:00:22 GMT
Organization: University Computer Club --- Perth, Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: mullet.gu.uwa.edu.au

Various people have been giving their opinions on how long descriptions in IF
should be. I believe that the descriptions should be as long as they need to
be, no longer, and no shorter. A 5 page description of a simple hallway is only
going to annoy the user, and slow down the pace of the game. A 5 word
description of the elf-king's throne room near the end of the great quest is
going to annoy them just as much.
The majority of descriptions should be fairly short - 5 to 10 lines or so, with
the occasional longer description for more important locations and objects.
The important thing is to have *lots* of descriptions. If your 20 line
description of the throne room says there is a glittering jewelled throne,
the user should be able to take a closer look at it, and get a more detailed
description. If this description mentions the huge ruby mounted on the top,
give that a separate descrition too. This creates depth, and also keeps the
amount of irrelevant information down for the users who don't want it.
Remember that these descriptions dicate the mood of the game. If you want the
feeling in one part of the world to be fast-paced and exciting, then lots of
short descriptions are what you need. Keep the players moving. In areas where
there is less pressure, and the players can relax a bit, make the descriptions
a longer - it gives a feeling that the characters are taking the time to have
a good look around. Build up the feeling as they approach an important
location, and give a good description at the end - they don't want to just be
told that this is important. They want to feel it.
It all depends on your goals, of course. If you want a hack-and-slay game
like a lot of MUDs I've seen, then descriptions are going to be short. Players
are just going to ignore them anyway. If developing atmosphere is important,
you want more. Just don't overdo it - long chunks of text are difficult to
read in one go. It is better to break them up into smaller parts.

John West
-- 
For the humour impaired: Insert a :-) after every third word
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: TADS
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 05:44:50 GMT

mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (John P. Mechalas) writes:

>There is a shareware program on archive.umich.edu called TADS.ZIP.  It is
>a Text Adventure Design System (or something like that) that appears to 
>be capable of developing some pretty complex text-adventure games through
>the use of 'C' style programming.  Has anyone ever worked with this software
>before?  It costs $25 to register (upon which you are sent full documentation)
>and I don't want to spend the money on something that is more flash than
>substance...

 TADS is a pretty good language that lets you write Infocom-style text
adventures if you're willing to take the time to learn the TADS
language properly. Although it isn't impossibly difficult, it does
require familiarity with programming conventions (C or Pascal) and the
necessary patience to deal with the rather cryptic error messages it
generates.

 If you want to see a decent TA that's built with TADS, check out the
Unnkulian series. Available at an FTP site near you.

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 05:35:07 GMT
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization

On another tangent (and I hope I haven't been preempted on this one :)
do many authors use dependent descriptions? That is, writing multiple
descriptions for one "object", depending on whatever circumstances is
thought appropriate. The most common use of this technique is the
"brief" description, given after a room has been described in full
once. This sort of thing, although time and memory consuming, would be
a wonderful thing to keep unsuspecting players guessing, particularly
if one effect was to leave out all gettable objects.

Jamie
Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Date: Tue,  6 Oct 1992 14:23:18 -0400 
From: Todd Keenan Bowman <tb0o+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: The Mist

Stephen Kings THE MIST was one of a series of text adventure games from a
company whose name I can't remember. Others in the series included RAMBO,
JAMES BOND: VIEW TO A KILL, and INDIANA JONES: REVENGE OF THE ANCIENTS. I had
The Mist (actually I still do) for my Apple II+ system a good many years back.

The game itself was actually pretty good, following the plot of the story
pretty faithfully  (it starts in the supermarket and progresses from there).
My main two complaints with the game was the weak parser and the fact that the
game explains the source of the mist, while in the original the origin is
only speculated. The game has a nice atmosphere though.

I found others in the series, especially James Bond and Rambo, nearly unplay-
able due to the horrible parser and vocabulary.

BTW - Anyone know how to open the ice flow/submarine hatch in James Bond? or
Get off the electricfied bed in Rambo?

Anyone else play any of these games?

t
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas)
Subject: Re: TADS
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 05:36:02 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <28438@life.ai.mit.edu> dmb@lf.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) writes:
>
>IMHO, TADS is great; you should register and get the whole kit.  You
>won't be disappointed.  For examples of full-length adventures created
>with it, see the following:
>
>	PC and compatibles:
>	------------------
> [...]
>	Mac:
>	---	
> [...]
>	Atari ST:
>	--------
> [...]

Is this wonderful system available for the Amiga?

-- 
__/\__  Jonathan S. Haas         | Jake liked his women the way he liked
\    /  University of Michigan   | his kiwi fruit: sweet yet tart, firm-
/_  _\  positron@engin.umich.edu | fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and
  \/                             | covered with short brown fuzzy hair.
From: dmb@lf.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: TADS
Date: 28 Sep 92 13:55:23 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

In article <dpz-1d=@engin.umich.edu> positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas) writes:
>In article <28438@life.ai.mit.edu> dmb@lf.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) writes:
>>[TADS]
>
>Is this wonderful system available for the Amiga?

No, it doesn't run on the Amiga or under Unix.  People have volunteered
to port it to the Amiga but I don't know if that's happening, when it
will be done, etc.

It doesn't run under Unix because the author (Mike Roberts) doesn't
really want the source to widely available, and binary-only Unix
distributions are kind of silly.

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: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:43:58 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <JAMIE.92Oct2173507@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>, jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish) writes:
>On another tangent (and I hope I haven't been preempted on this one :)
>do many authors use dependent descriptions? That is, writing multiple
>descriptions for one "object", depending on whatever circumstances is
>thought appropriate.

This was used to considerable advantage in "Suspended", in which you play a
frozen corpse in mental control of half-a-dozen or so robots, each equipped
with only one type of sensor.  Auda could only hear, Sensa could only feel,
and so forth.  Interesting game.  Don't have a robot open your container.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com)  No, I don't speak for Cabletron.  Need you ask?
-
How about we all do something reasonable?  I bet that'll confuse 'em!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: Hinding.1@nd.edu (John E. Hinding)
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Followup-To: rec.arts.int-fiction
Organization: University of Notre Dame
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 02:30:34 GMT

In article <28625@life.ai.mit.edu>, dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
wrote:

> 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
	Well the problem with long paragraphs is that they tend to lose the
reader. I personally would prefer for more of the description to unfold as
I examined a room. For example maybe the squaking parrot will not squak
until I have been in the room for a couple of minutes or done a few
actions. I feel that it would lead to a more life like representation.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:00:47 GMT
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization

In article <librik.717906933@cory.Berkeley.EDU> librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik) writes:

   I remember this from the time I was writing Dog Star.  There is a terrible
   temptation to just blather on and on.  The user can't "use his imagination"
   to picture the scene when he's drowning in a sea of pointless detail.
   Sure, you don't want to just see "You're in a shack.  There's a table here."
   but if someone can get 16-20 lines of 80-character description out of
   the table -- you have to wonder if all that description is properly
   supported: can you "examine" the features described in the table?

To go off on a slight tangent here, I'd just like to ask whether
anyone uses an in-depth heirarchical technique for descriptions. That
is, that on examination of a particular "object", the description
contains more "objects" which can be examined. I've never seen this
done to more than 2 levels, but I think in some cases it could be
taken further. The reason I mention this is that it is one way of
breaking down a large single body of descriptive text, without losing
any of the detail.

The one hitch to this scheme (that I have thought of) is that players
who didn't want unnecessary description would not know when to stop.
Perhaps if there was a designated level beyond which "useful"
information stops? Or would this be too artificial.

The other option of course is to incorporate as much of the
description into the "object"'s usefulness. That is, that the author
go to the trouble of putting in little (non-vital, but perhaps
interesting, or alternative) ways that the object can be used which
depends on information gleaned from its description.

Jamie
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: eric@telebit.com (Eric Smith)
Subject: Re: TADS
X-Disclaimer: Everything I write is false.
Organization: Telebit Corporation
	<1992Sep28.191022.2919@rtsg.mot.com>
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:01:45

>>On Mon, 28 Sep 1992 19:10:22 GMT, iott@rtsg.mot.com (Joel K. Iott) said:
> The infocom interpreter has a primitive instruction set - somebody said
> that it emulates the behavoir of a microprocessor used in an old Atari
> microcomputer. 

Actually, it is a simple, but high level, instruction set.  It is totally
unlike any standard microprocessor, and has very interactive-fiction specific
operations.

> It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the infocom source. Likewise, it
> would be impossible to reconstruct the TADS source.

It's quite easy to take an Infocom binary and generate readable, moderately
easy to understand source.  Of course, it's not the same language that
Infocom wrote the stuff in, and you don't get comments.

I think what the TADS author (not the game author) is worried about is that
he doesn't want the source to TADS itself (not the games) to become freely
available.  He's obviously put a lot of work into it, and it's a really
nice system, so I think that's reasonable.

Eric
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: c89ponga@odalix.ida.liu.se (kand. Pontus Gagge)
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 22:00:46 GMT

let@insect.cis.ufl.edu (Luis E. Torres) writes:

[Deleted]

>The problem is, the few friends I've shown the test version to say the
>descriptions are too long. Each description is, on average, about 16 to 20
>lines on an 80-character PC screen. This is also true of most person
>descriptions.

That *is* too long; it makes the reader/player too passive. Why not use
a stratagem Infocom employed in some later games (ah! Trinity!): achieving
great detail by having *hierarchies* of descriptions? To take a trivial
example: in the description of the "Wabe" there is mention of a sundial;
the sundial is described as having a gnomon; in the gnomon's description
you are told it is affixed to the sundial with a bolt; which is threaded
left/right-handedly. 

Instead of force-feeding descriptions in purple prose to the readers, make
them participate. It is, after all, the fundamental idea in IF. Besides,
it makes a "second reading" much more likely - you never discover all there
is to be read.


--
/-------------------------+-------- DISCLAIMER ---------\
| Pontus Gagge            | The views expressed herein  |
| University of Link|ping | are compromises between my  |
|                         | mental subpersonae, and may |
| c89ponga@und.ida.liu.se | be held by none of them.    |
\-------------------------+-----------------------------/
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (John P. Mechalas)
Subject: TADS
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 02:37:34 GMT

There is a shareware program on archive.umich.edu called TADS.ZIP.  It is
a Text Adventure Design System (or something like that) that appears to 
be capable of developing some pretty complex text-adventure games through
the use of 'C' style programming.  Has anyone ever worked with this software
before?  It costs $25 to register (upon which you are sent full documentation)
and I don't want to spend the money on something that is more flash than
substance...

-- 
John Mechalas                                          "I'm not an actor, but
mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu                                 I play one on TV."
Aero Engineering, Purdue University                     #include disclaimer.h
From: dmb@lf.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Date: 2 Oct 92 15:03:32 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

In article <Hinding.1-300992212650@archmacconsultant.architecture.lab.nd.edu> Hinding.1@nd.edu (John E. Hinding) writes:
>	Well the problem with long paragraphs is that they tend to lose the
>reader. I personally would prefer for more of the description to unfold as
>I examined a room. For example maybe the squaking parrot will not squak
>until I have been in the room for a couple of minutes or done a few
>actions. I feel that it would lead to a more life like representation.

I didn't say long paragraphs, I just said long descriptions.  But you
point out something important here -- in extending the average
description, I've had to pay a lot more attention to the formatting of
the paragraphs.  I put line breaks between paragraphs and pay closer
attention to keeping the paragraphs themselves short now.  Certainly a
monolithic block of text is extemely difficult to follow.  But remember
that you can always page back through the text (at least with TADS) if
you get lost.

(Another side effect is that it's taking me a lot longer to write this
one than the last one.  That's probably understandable but it's still
kind of depressing!)

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: toma@sail.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Date: 1 Oct 92 23:54:07 GMT
Reply-To: toma@sail.labs.tek.com
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <librik.717906933@cory.Berkeley.EDU> librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik) writes:
>dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) writes:

>>Almost everyone who's
>>played Crowther and Woods' Colossal Cave remembers the letters written
>>in fire.  Not coincidentally, this was one of the longest scene
>>descritptions in the game, and it methodically address every sense --
>>the bright light and the lava below, the heat, the rumbling, etc.

>This was one of the more subtle ironies in that game: with all that
>wonderful description, that room had nothing at all to do with the rest
>of the game.  There wasn't even anything you could do with all the
>things mentioned in there but gaze on it.  You wouldn't want the whole
>game to be like that.


The real joke about that room is no longer apparent with todays high
speed systems -- the typical (interactive) computer user back then
used a Teletype which printed 10 characters per second. That breathless
view description took several minutes to print--and of course was 
worthless!


-- 
Tom Almy
toma@sail.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply
From: mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (John P. Mechalas)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: TADS
Date: 28 Sep 92 23:25:01 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <9209282245.AA08811@boa.cis.ohio-state.edu> baker-j@news.cis.ohio-state.edu (john t baker) writes:
>
>This may not be an entirely appropriate place to ask this, but--
>
>Has anyone else experienced any frustration trying to get the TADS.ZIP
>file from archive.umich.edu?  This is my first time using FTP, so possibly
>I'm doing something wrong.  I thought that this was a public archive, but
>the system keeps insisting on a username and a password, and then tells
>me that my login is incorrect.

To obtain files via FTP:

    login: anonymous  (or ftp)
    Password:  Your E-Mail address

-- 
John Mechalas                                          "I'm not an actor, but
mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu                                 I play one on TV."
Aero Engineering, Purdue University                     #include disclaimer.h
From: friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:50:50 GMT
Organization: Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave. Cambridge, MA 02139
In-reply-to: jrs@netcom.com's message of 30 Sep 92 14:24:17 GMT

What's the Adventure Game Toolkit, and where can it be obtained?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction