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From: Matthew Murray <i9717029@wsunix.wsu.edu>
Subject: Re: *Let's discuss ethinocentric puzzles** 
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Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 07:23:28 GMT
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On 11 Dec 1995, Sarinee Achavanuntakul wrote:

> 	- the infamous baseball diamond puzzle in Zork 2

	I think that the important thing to remember with this particular 
puzzle, and most that deal with the kind of thing you're talking about 
here, is the fact that originally, Zork wasn't written for people that 
lived in countries where they didn't know what baseball was.  It was 
written for fun, to see what could be done with computers, in the late 
1970s at M.I.T. in the United States, where people know what baseball 
is.  When they created the game, I doubt very much they believed that 
anyone overseas would be interested in the game, let alone anyone outside 
the hallowed halls of their campus.  In short, they didn't know they had 
given birth to the computer gaming industry, and they didn't believe that 
Zork I would attain the importance and popularity it has.  And, who in 
their right mind would change anything about any of the Zork games after 
they had been established firmaments in the industry for years?  No one.  
It would be silly, and I think it would have been a mistake to do so.  
Zork is Zork, and it should be played for that reason (and yes, it should 
still be played today!), and if it contains one puzzle that you're not 
familiar with, good, considering most of the puzzles written by so-called 
computer game companies today, in the pursuit of making games the whole 
world can play, create games and write puzzles that are pathetic in every 
sense of the word.

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   Actor - Tenor - German Speaker - Computer Game Player - Babylon 5 Fanatic

