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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: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 16:02:00 GMT
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Stephen Bond  <stephen@sonycom.com> wrote:
>Stephen Granade wrote:
>> I object because you are putting undue weight on this one
>> command. From my perspective it makes as much sense to decide how lazy
>> or unoriginal an author is by how they handle >XYZZY as how they
>> handle >X ME.
>
>Really? I certainly wouldn't look at it that way. On the one hand,
>you've got the response to an easter egg in-joke command that rarely
>has anything to do with the actual game, and on the other hand
>you've got the description of one of the game's main characters
>(assuming the PC is characterized at all, of course). Not really
>comparable in my view.

The description of one of the game's main characters as
perceived by that self-same character.

One of the most unnatural of acts the player character
can do is, having gotten herself in the unfortunate
situation prompted by the prologue, is to, given the
first oppotunity to do something, react by EXAMING
HERSELF as if she knew nothing about herself. (Consider
Prized Possession for example.)

It's effectively a vote of unconfidence in the author
to adequately dole out the PC characterization over the
course of the story; it's as if on starting a book and
seeing all these strange names I immediately flip to
the glossary at the end to see who each of the characters
is.

Now, yes, there might well be SOME player characters
and some stories for which 'X ME' is a plausible opening
move, and there are indeed stories in which 'X ME' is
an appropriate move later in the game; but we are talking
about players who always 'X ME' on the first two or three
moves (along with 'I'), and we are talking about *all*
stories.

My opinion leans in the direction that at some past point,
authors experimented with providing information in 'X ME'
and 'I' that wasn't otherwise available in the game. In
a treasure-hunt puzzle-game specifically I can imagine the
necessity of 'I'. But I don't see why, just because these
certain players have been trained to the necessity of 'X ME
by badly-written games, we should be obliged to make these
commands particularly more interesting or descriptive.

(The above paragraph is striking a hyperbolic pose; reread
the phrase "leans in the direction" which tries to make that
explicit.)

SeanB
[you have a rock]
