Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: dmorin@world.std.com (Duane D Morin)
Subject: Re: Frustration in text adventures
Message-ID: <CLzno5.KxK@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <2ke5or$3p3@news.u.washington.edu> <2kr8o0$gvq@news.u.washington.edu> <Feb.28.04.43.30.1994.17520@math.rutgers.edu> <JAMIE.94Mar1184431@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 13:48:04 GMT
Lines: 59

In article <JAMIE.94Mar1184431@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>,
Jamieson Norrish <jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
>For some items at least a different method could be used, whereby
>using the item does not transfer it to the character's inventory. For
>example, you put the wine bottle on the table. Later, you pour
>yourself a glass of wine. Although you don't specify this, you put the
>wine bottle back on the table. Although this might not work for all
>objects and all places, it could still mean avoiding some of the
>problems of the method outlined above.

A more general variant of this was described by Schank years ago in 
the AI field, known generally as "scripts."  A common example:

Enter diner.
Sit.
Order meal.
Eat.
Leave.

Implies:  There is an empty booth.  You take it.
	  A waitress comes over to take your order.  She brings you your order.
	  You pay for the meal when it's done.

>Those problems are that there are many situations in which you would
>want to have items carried in the hands while you moved around. For
>example, carrying a security pass while walking through a well-guarded
>complex. Or was the proposal on a more abstract level?

>wear security badge
or
>show badge to guard

So many different ways to "carry", "hold", etc...:(

[automatically dropping objects, etc, when leaving a room]

>I'm in two minds about this: sure, the actions are ordinary, and so
>taken for granted. However, wouldn't it be helpful to the player to
>have these little messages, and wouldn't they also add something to
>the atmosphere of the game? I'm keen on the idea of plenty of feedback
>from character actions, and this would seem to be a part of that.

It seems like the only happy medium here would be a system that knows
what objects you don't really want to carry, and which you want to keep.
If the system assumes that you don't really want it, but you really did,
then a message saying that you can't take it out of the room would be
nice.  I'd hate to pick up the dustball from under the desk and then
spend 50 turns travelling to the bugblatter's lair in the hopes of using
it to make him sneeze, only to find out that the computer had dropped
the dustball for me before I left the office.

Or, like some other posters have mentioned, focus on puzzles where it's
not what you pick up that wins the game for you, but how you act in
certain situations.  Must more unbroken ground there, it would seem.

>Jamie

Duane

