Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.vt.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!portc01.blue.aol.com!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!world!buzzard
From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: problems with disambiguation
Message-ID: <GKtIB1.81B@world.std.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 04:11:25 GMT
References: <6KYu7.5571$aM.575633@newsc.telia.net> <Eo7v7.68$78.11537@inet16.us.oracle.com> <9pk5qq$ll5$1@news.lth.se> <OYnv7.70$78.12160@inet16.us.oracle.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Lines: 26
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:93252

Mike Roberts <mjr-SEENOTE@hotmail.com> wrote:
>PC knowledge could enter in other ways.  For example, suppose the item being
>disambiguated is the key in "unlock door with key" - there's one door here
>but you're carrying five keys.  The first time through, you might have to
>try several keys to find the right one (ideally the PC would do this
>automatically, but this is not disambiguation in the normal sense - there
>could be a cost involved, such as time, that wouldn't be involved in normal
>disambiguation - so you wouldn't want to do it while fleeing the Evil Ogre
>of Foo).  Once you've identified the key, though, the parser ought to pick
>it out for you automatically henceforth.  (Credit where it's due: this is
>Sean T. Barrett's idea, not my own.)

Generally when I talk about this topic I focus on the idea
that the parser should model *player* knowledge, not player-*character*
knowledge. In practice, it depends on the game; you might WANT
the player to get pulled along by the player-character's inherent
knowledge of which key is correct without the player knowing.

But in general I agree with dfan; the parser lies in between
the *player* and the game, not the player character and the game,
and the model should focus on player knowledge, probably intersected
with player-character knowledge (or scoping, but 'knowledge' is
more accurate--if you turn out the light, you still know the light
switch is there, you just can't see it anymore).

SeanB
