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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Purity in Programming
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Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 01:38:10 GMT
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Vincent Laviano <vince@cs.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>First, consider: how much of the total development time for a work of IF is
>usually devoted to implementing the map?  Keep this question in mind during
>the digression that follows.  We'll get back to it.

On first thought, I'm definitely in the school of "the
map is not the focus of the game, don't over-optimize
effort on it."

GUIs aren't even necessarily THAT good for mapping... assuming
we're talking about GUI input as well as output, making
them support things like "the passage N from room A connects
to the SW exit from B" creates extra work for the user, even
when the user doesn't want to make use of the feature. And how
do you indicate "one-way" passage? These problems are solveable,
but they'll make the UI more clumsy.

"Heroes" was one of the larger games in the comp, but because of
the hook, it basically reused the same map five times. How easily
can I cut and paste a map in a GUI if its author didn't think people
would ever want to replicate maps? How will it help me with the
two most noticeable map-specific tasks I actually encountered--one
that took the longest, and one that was the most bug prone: writing
the room descriptions, and making sure that all exits were described?

But on the other hand...

I happen to have one of those memory/visualization skillsets that lets
me carry around an IF map in my head pretty easily. If at any time
I need to stop and think about "where" something is in the game, I
just pop up the map in my head and think about it.

For the CRPG I'm developing, I have a graphical conversation editor.
The conversation consists of a bunch of "nodes" each of which has
a bunch of text (what the other person says, what your choices are,
etc.). Each node has a name, and each reply has the name of the node
that the conversation "branches" to.

There's nothing inherently spatial about this conversation "tree"
(actually a graph); and all the information needed to "run" the
conversation is right there in the text form. However, I went
ahead and added to each node a 2d "x,y" coordinate, and a
graphical display which shows all the nodes. The "x,y" coordinate
is just where it shows up on the screen, and I can drag them
around to my heart's content just trying to make patterns
that help me understand the flow of conversation. (It also allows
me to drag lines from replies to the target nodes, so it does allow
some input as well as output, but I'm not sure this was crucial.)

So in the same way, I *can* see some utility in having GUI tools
that help with mapping. It wouldn't help *me*, but for people who
have more trouble keeping a map in their head it might be a nice
convenience.

But on the third hand...

*All* there is in my conversations are conversation nodes. So it
makes sense to put a lot of effort into cleaning those up. I worry
that overemphasizing the map tools will encourage authors to
use the tools to create far too many boring rooms.

SeanB
