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Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 08:33:40 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: Avatar-less IF
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Jayzee wrote:

>news@davidbrain.co.uk (David Brain) wrote in message
>
[...]

>>I can't work out
>>how to stop people from simply saving their position, watching event X and
>>then restoring and watching event Y,
>>
[...]

>>However, that's my problem and not yours ;-)
>>
[...]

>I'm curious; why is this a "problem"? The player is essentially using
>the "lawnmower solution" to find out as much about the game as
>possible, but I don't see this as a problem that the author has to
>solve.
>

It might not be something necessary to solve, but it may be desirable.
 Don't think just of the players who are actively trying to "mow" their
way through the game (nice metaphor, incidentally), but of the players
who played once, and are taking another shot--or got stumped in one
direction, and are trying again.  If you allow all the solutions, you
have to account for every possible combination of their applications.  Ew.

There are, however, also authors (from what I've read around here) who
seem to believe that you should be typing the "one, true transcript."  I
still don't quite understand that.

>Isn't it analagous to a person reading a standard linear-prose
>whodunit who takes a peek at the ending? In the (presumed) opinion of
>the author those ending-peekers are ruining the suspense and mystery
>of the story, but it's their choice - the author feels no obligation
>to devise some intricate mechanical contraption that will clamp the
>pages shut.
>

I did have an elementary school teacher who had an adhesive binding
device (kind of like masking tape, but not quite) to prevent us from
reading ahead of books we were discussing...I thought it was weird, but
I can sort of see his point.  Kind of.

>Perhaps we should just relax, and suggest to the players that they
>will just have *more fun* if they stay within the boundaries of the
>story.
>

It's also fun (in different moods) to poke at the boundaries and see how
complete the simulation might be.  Just like it's quite a lot of fun,
after enjoying a movie, to sit back and pick at the various holes in the
plot.  It's just a different kind of fun.

>On a broader note, what about debugging? It's fair to say at the
>moment that all IF authors are amateurs (in the unpaid sense), doing
>this in their spare time; this means that author-time is a precious
>commodity.
>If someone reports "well, I robbed the shop by putting the cash-till
>in the matchbox, but then the game crashed", wouldn't it be a better
>use of time to reply "well don't be so ruddy stupid then" and spend
>the time polishing room descriptions or dialogue rather than trying to
>make the game proof against rules-lawyers?
>

It depends on your perspective.  From a "customer-service" perspective,
no.  They're valid customers (see above), and with such a small
community, it's best not to piss anyone off by telling them they're
misusing the product.  More importantly, though, it's a great feeling
(not that I've released anything publically) when someone types
something obscure, and you *handled* it.  Every mishandled input, no
matter how obscure, feels wrong.

And, perhaps most importantly, wierd things like that usually (in my
limited experience) mean that there's something much more sinister
lurking in the game.  To use your example, if putting big things in
small things crashes a game, there's a fairly good chance that the
entire inventory management system has a major bug in it that may
manifest itself under more ordinary circumstances.

I do understand your reasoning, though, in case it sounds like I'm just
bashing you.  It's entirely possible to go too far, which is one of the
reasons I haven't released anything yet (well, that and I've split my
energies between a bunch of games, which probably isn't a very good idea
in the long run...).

[...]

