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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: NPC Conversation Analysis
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:39:40 GMT
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LRR wrote:
>3. Menu based conversations better reflect reality. [] You suppose that you
>can at any time ask anyone you meet about anything at all. This is true
>in a vague physical sense; [] However, you are bound by the fact that you
>are a human being with a certain knowledge base and certain
>understandign of social protocols. In practice, I can no more ask my
>middle-aged next-door neighbor about his sex life than I can take a
>stroll across the Chesapeake Bay, and I can no more ask an attractive
>woman I meet on the street to show me her breasts than I could pull
>out a gun and fire into a playground []

I'm sorry to hear that all your future games are going to
be pure CYOAs with no command prompt, since you obviously
wouldn't want the player to type things like
   >WALK ACROSS BAY
or
   >SHOOT AT PLAYGROUND

any more than you would want her typing
   >ASK NEIGHBOR ABOUT SEX LIFE
or
   >WOMAN, DOFF TOP

Or, to be non-snarky, I'd argue that except for the
topic-based menu stuff, menu systems simply don't
provide enough choices for the player to feel in control;
it's very obvious that the author is steering the game
to one or three or four specific places. If it's "more
realistic", it's more realistic in the way that a book
is more realistic than a transcript of an IF playthrough,
and it's less immersive in my book since it's less
(meaningfully) interactive. And realism isn't the goal.

SeanB
