From: dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett)
Subject: Re: Game libraries...
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 00:25:07 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.171823.57640@cc.usu.edu> sl8nl@cc.usu.edu writes:
>Show me the interest.  You are the only one who's said anything about it.

Sigh.  Looks like I won't get my wish of seeing your "dream machine."
Darn, and I had such high hopes for it.  I was ready to give up TADS
altogether.

>Hell, man!  Have you ever taken a compilers class in college?  Do you
>even know how to program, short of writing text adventures in TADS?
>If not, then you have absolutely no business being on this thread.
>...
>OK.  How long have you been reading the nets?  I have answered more
>than 15 pleas for help on how to do something in the past month...

You haven't read my response to your friend's posting.  Please do that;
it'll clear these things up some.

>I don't see you doing anything to benefit the programming/gaming
>community short of your whining and complaining.

Perhaps you haven't been looking hard enough?

>Give me a break.  I have three drawerfuls of disks at home...more than
>a thousand disks.  Most have source code from up to ten years ago on them.

You wrote the code when you were 6?  Gosh, I *am* impressed at that.  I
didn't write my first program 'til I was 7!  (And, BTW, it was "guess
the number."  I'm thinking about rereleasing it. 8)

>Pardon me for living.

No apology necessary.  :)

>I suppose you can give me a technical description of how Apogee pulled
>of Wolf3d.

Wolfenstein 3-D is considerably easier to do than Ultima Underworld.  I
could certainly describe the techniques used and assumptions made by
Apogee in "pulling it off."  I wouldn't want to speculate on Underworld
so quickly, though, since the lighting and non-right angles makes
things a lot more complicated.

An example of a clever optimization Apogee uses in Wolfenstein 3-D:  no
matter what angle you look at a stationary object from, you see the
same view of that object.  Look at the table and chairs closely for an
obvious example of this.

Other simplifications:

	1. All angles are 90 degrees.
	2. All floors and ceilings are at the same height.
	3. Floors and ceilings are not texture mapped.
	4. Lighting is faked.
	5. No looking up and down; the view is always fixed.

There are others.

>Get your head out of the clouds and come down to earth.  There are
>easy ways to do things.

You are completely missing the point.  My major disagreement with you
was over your adventure development system.  You claimed you wrote a
comprehensive IF system in two weeks.  My response was simply that if
you thought that was true you didn't know what I meant when I said
"(text adventure) game design system."  You haven't done anything to
change my mind on that point either.  If you don't care about
changing my mind, by all means don't waste your time digging up
source or an executable to substantiate your claims.

>I'm well aware that Blue Sky spent a whole heck of a lot of time on their
>engine...but Ultima Underworld is not real-time.  And I'm not knocking
>UW either.  It's going to open up a new world for virtual reality.

Curious; what do you mean by "Ultima Underworld is not real-time?"
It's real-time enough on my machine that I feel like I'm zooming
around the dungeon on a motorcycle.

>> I'm really not sure what your point is throughout this thread.  It
>> seems like you're just convinced that game design systems are
>> unnecessary because they're so incredibly trivial to write.  My
>
>That's coming out of your mouth, Dave.

Well, that's because I was summarizing what I thought your postion was (is).
Is it?

>Speak for yourself.  You are acting like the know-it-all here, not me.
>I'm providing the insights, you're arguing the points.  Plain and
>simple as that.

It's hard to make an argument without sounding confident; I'll be the
first to admit that.  And I do feel I'm at least reasonably qualified
to discuss your claims.

>> what everyone else spends years on only requires a few weeks of your
>> time.  Frankly, I don't believe that.
>
>That's your choice.

So it is, so it is.

Dave Baggett
dmb@wam.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer