Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Path: gmd.de!jvnc.net!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!caen!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jf41+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Message-ID: <of4MbGC00VpFQ4iEtH@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 20:48:02 -0500 
From: "Jonathan R. Ferro" <jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Intelligence Assumptions
In-Reply-To: <1ehhjoINNqbm@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <blasius.88.722034873@gmd.de> <1ef5ajINNs2l@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> <GNAT.92Nov19215055@kauri.kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
	<1ehhjoINNqbm@agate.berkeley.edu>
Lines: 18

lippin@wish-bone.berkeley.edu (The Apathist) writes:
> From the tinkling keys of gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington):
> > --> 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.

As many people who have played Loom and/or LGOP II can attest, flatly
refusing to let people dig their own graves can make the game very
boring quite quickly.  I found that discovering novel ways to die in
Zork II was often very interesting and possibly quite informative.  My
favorite, other than the standard trip through the spheres, was
overheating the balloon and popping out of the top of the volcano shaft
to the sight of a somewhat familiar landscape before crash-landing.

-- Jon Ferro               Einsprachigkeit ist heilbar
