Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!yale.edu!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!darwin.sura.net!haven.umd.edu!uunet!ddsw1!chinet!jorn
From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Jorn wants bodyparts!!! (Was: TADS object system ;^)
Message-ID: <C47Lv4.JEo@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
References: <C45MCt.LC8@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 22:45:04 GMT
Lines: 69

Neil K. Guy writes:
>  Hmmm... Not to flame you, but it sounds like this is all moving away
> from a "romance" idea to a somewhat tacky sex fantasy game... [...]
> If teenage boys want braindead text adventure fantasies I reckon
> they can go write their own. :)

Well, dammit, the teenage-boy-in-me, and the teenage-girl-in-Janet-
Dailey, clearly *do* want sex in our fantasies, and ***braindead*** is 
all the technology we have to start with, at this point! ;^)

Cheesy-tacky-porn is just badly-written *literary erotica*, anyway-- 
create for me a rich-enough TADS foundation of object-behavior, and 
great artists will be able to make great art, just by filling in the 
right *text strings*.

Let me try to say that more generally:  the TADS technology that 
currently exists, or *any technology that can handle long strings of 
text*, even the word processor, is sufficient to handle great literary 
art, because great literary art is *just text strings*, from a cs point-
of-view.  So if I type in great chunks of Moby Dick, connected by 
trivial shit like "GO AFT", I could have *truly great* interactive art, 
even though it's trivially interactive.

So if we can harness the pornographers to make a technology that's good 
for them, it's bound to be useful for us (once we've hosed it down with 
disinfectant, anyway... ;^)

>  [In Neil's game-under-development ...] I didn't see the point
> of implementing removable underclothes and the like. My game is
> supposed to be reasonably realistic as they come, but if it turns into
> a cheap thrill titillation game then it rapidly becomes veeeery 
boring,
> IMHO.

10 trillion romance-novel addicts disagree!

>  Likewise body parts. In my game you can refer to various body parts -
> particularly useful ones like hands and feet which can wear gloves and
> boots - but I didn't see the point of much more detail than that.

As Ray Charles might say: "...Jack, *you dead!!!*"  ;^)

Seriously, romance without articulate bodyparts has gotta be unbearably 
dry and prim.

And to eschew underwear (!? ;^) is like building your Ken-doll with the 
briefs *already painted on*...


> [...] the mechanics of removing clothes is a lot easier to implement
> than figuring out how software simulacra should respond in vaguely
> human-like ways. I guess this is what makes me somewhat uncomfortable
> about this idea. Since we can't really simulate the real world in a
> text adventure - and we certainly can't simulate human beings worth a
> darn - we end up simplifying to rather insipid levels. And human
> beings become highly objectified creations.

Patience, patience.  Think positive!  Start with what you know how to 
do, and then *stretch*...

>  Anyway, as for the clothing thing, in my game (TADS developed; as-yet
> unfinished) I've implemented more sophisticated clothing, largely for
> realism purposes. So it's not possible to take off a jacket while a
> backpack is being worn, for instance.

Well, howdja do it, already?


Jorn
