Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!newsserver.sfu.ca!sfu.ca!neilg
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: What words to use and recognize
Message-ID: <neilg.724581853@sfu.ca>
Sender: news@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
References: <BzDJLv.8xn.2@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 08:44:13 GMT
Lines: 45

pww+@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Peter Weyhrauch) writes:

>Correcting typos:
>   bedrom --> bedroom (deletion)

 This is an interesting touch. Handy, but might under some
circumstances lead to the game making assumptions that you don't want,
no?

>You go to the east.
>You are no longer located in the sunroom.
>You are now located in the bedroom.

>You are in the bedroom:
>    To the south, you see the closet door.
>    To the south, you see the closet.
>    To the west, you see the sunroom.
>    To the west, you see the red bedroom door.

 I don't want to be rude, as I know nothing about the Oz project and
the state of your software development. (I don't doubt that it's very
innovative and ground-breaking.) But this is awful prose. I'm not
crazy about most text adventure prose to begin with, but I highly
doubt that I'd be willing to play a game that read like this. Any
pretenses toward literature are completely absent. Aren't there some
ways of making this repetitive, mechanical text a bit more human? Some
algorithm that can assemble options in a more readable fashion?

 Again, I understand that this is a work in progress and that it's
probably somewhat limited now. Just my $0.02 worth.

>You pet Lyotard.
>Lyotard meows.
>You hear a MEOW.

 Another thought. This is very redundant. I realize that it's
responding to an actor doing something (cat makes a meow sound) and
the game is also reporting an audible event. But shouldn't there be
filters so that only one event is reported? The way it's phrased makes
it sound like the cat meows, and then some disembodied voice says
"MEOW" in response...

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)

 (still totally in the dark as to what this Oz project is all about...)
