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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: More Inform weirdness
Message-ID: <GHJyEE.EJy@world.std.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 16:42:14 GMT
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emshort@mindspring.com <emshort@mindspring.com> wrote:
>It also frustrated me intensely not to be able to propose my own
>topics of conversation with the NPC in The Weapon, and that got in the
>way a little bit.

Hmm, well, conversation is really not the point of the situation,
and the PC is not a talker; but ok, that may answer the core question,
that conversation is the most important thing about an NPC for you.

>Emotional connection, surprise, the unexpectedly thrilling response --
>these are, I think, essentially more about writing than they are about
>programming, and while coding cleverness can certainly be put in their
>service, coding cleverness on its own does not generate them.

Oh sure, I don't consider her a candidate for a best NPC XYZZY, I
know my writing isn't up to snuff. I guess my point is that I'm not
aware of any characters who are that seemingly-aware-of-what-is-going-on--
although I'd be happy for someone to point me at one, I've only
played a fraction of the games in the archive--so the question is
to the extent I pulled it off technically, the degree to which pulling
that off makes her seem more alive than she would with the same quality
of writing and a more traditional NPC coding technique.

Or to put it a different way, I have no problem with the view that for
IF, a good NPC = "good coding + good writing", but I worry that we've
mostly stagnated on the coding front; so rather than dismiss my example
because of the writing I'd hope we could sort of address whether
advancing the coding as I think I've done is potentially productive.

SeanB
