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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: How can I avoid looking like a chump?
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Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:47:01 GMT
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Aris Katsaris <katsaris@otenet.gr> wrote:
>I stand by it. The library default as an answer to "x me" shows
>two things nowadays:
>a) That the PC is not a developed one
>b) That even for a completely blank-identity PC adventurer of
>old times, the game author didn't bother changing the customary
>library default messages.
>
>It's no *proof* of course, but I'd say it is indeed a sign for a game
>which is either unoriginal or lazily implemented or both.

Indeed, and the one that gets my goat is when
a game hasn't implemented a new response to "JUMP".
Oh yeah, and to "TAKE ME". Oh yeah, and to "LOOK
UNDER ME". Oh yeah, and to "NORTH" in a room with
no north exits. Oh yeah, and to "XYZZY".

Oh, and Joe Half-Dozen over there has HIS list of
default messages which prove to him that a game
must suck.

Improving "X ME" may be important to a certain
subcommunity, but I don't think it's what people
absolutely should be spending their time on when
there are so many other things they could be
improving in their game. PC characterization isn't
the be-all-end-all of IF, and when it's important
IMO PCs are better characterized by action than
by self-description.

Or for another way it could happen, there are lots of
little things like "X ME" that it is easy to forget to
go tweak. Forgetting to go tweak one isn't necessarily
a sign of a lazy implementation, just an oversight.

SeanB
