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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: directions
Message-ID: <GIGLFn.LMG@world.std.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 07:42:59 GMT
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Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Karl Filenius <karl_filenius@hotmail.com> wrote:
>unrealistic (Where's the compass? What sane creature moves around an
>apartment in this manner?), it's also the fact that most (all?) games seem
>use compass directions as a pretext for not implementing even the simplest
>path finding algorithms.

Compass directions are concise, reversible, and encourage
the user to build a visualization of a space.  For a game
system in which determining where an exit goes requires a
function call which might print a message, it is decidely
non-trivial to write a generic path-finding system.  Some
games have done it on their own, but it is not in general
perceived as worth the effort.  Having "GO <location>" do
path-finding but only move you one room per turn does not
do enough to make players lives easier; a "GO <location>"
which "teleports" directly does not require path-finding.

SeanB
