Message-ID: <4jo14g$g90@news.lth.se>
Organization: Datorforeningen vid Lunds Universitet/LTH
X-Gateway: ZCONNECT UU tindrum.tng.oche.de [DUUCP BETA vom 30.03.1996], RFC1036/822 KY key.GUN.de [DUUCP BETA vom 06.01.1995]
References: <4i8nn0$lcf@news.lth.se> <4j96oq$3nc@hermes.rdrop.com> <4j9re5$1l4@life.ai.mit.edu> <4jhg0b$25s@hermes.rdrop.com>
From: mol@marvin.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: An embarrassment of riches?
Date: 01 Apr 1996 07:37:52 +0000
Path: nntp.gmd.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.tng.oche.de!tindrum.tng.oche.de!key.gun.de!news2.gtn.com!news.gtn.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!cdc2.cdc.net!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!newshost.convex.com!cnn.exu.ericsson.se!erinews.ericsson.se!news.seinf.abb.se!news.mdh.se!columba.udac.uu.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!news.lth.se!mol!mol
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction
Distribution: world
Lines: 76
Xref: nntp.gmd.de rec.arts.int-fiction:11318 rec.games.int-fiction:13658

In article <4jhg0b$25s@hermes.rdrop.com>,
Laurel Halbany <mythago@agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>dmb@lf.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) wrote:
>>Rigidity in IF games also comes from lack of technology.  Many of the kinds
>>of interactive works we envision require solutions to so-called AI-complete
>>problems.  This is a separate concern which I've addressed here before many
>>times, and so see no need to dwell on again.  Check the r.a.i-f archives.
>
>I agree that the problem is coding. I don't agree that it's some kind
>of 'convention,' i.e. that a well-written "puzzleless" IF game would
>be rejected and reviled.

Both David and Laurel are making important points here.

IMHO, the "rigidity" (rather: perceived lack of expressiveness) of IF is
due to technology much more than to any conventions on the part of authors
or audience. Some things, which we are used to see in non-interactive
fiction, are very difficult or downright impossible in IF, at least with
the current technology. The most glaring example, of course, is conversation
with NPC's. 

>>Haiku is another good example.  I didn't say anything about bad writing,
>>and I don't think that sonnets are poorly written.  What I was trying to
>>point out is that the more constrained a form is, the more difficult it is
>>to communicate through the form.  No haiku cannot communicate what _Richard
>>III_ does --- I hope that we can at least agree on that.  

Of course, but I don't really think that's primarily due to the constraints
on the form of a haiku, but to the constraints on its *size*. I won't
say it's impossible to squeeze the message of a full-length play into 7+5+7
syllables, but it would be rather a feat, wouldn't it?

Take another example: the Homeric epics. As a verse form, hexameter isn't
as constraied as a sonnet or a haiku, but it's still quite constrained to 
the extent that it's impossible to write good hexameter in the English
language. There are lots of higher-level constraints on the epic form as
well, ranging from the use of standing epithets to the way the gods are
supposed to interact with the humans - but could anybody seriously say that
the Iliad would have been better, or more touching, or more effective, or
a greater work of art, if it had been written in prose instead?


>>There is no
>>Board, but that hasn't stopped 95% of our IF authors from following
>>tradition very meticulously.  And in turn, the IF community tends to reward
>>this (cf. AJT's comments about Jigsaw's merits in this regard) and to
>>severely criticize deviations from the norm, unless "there's a darn good
>>reason for them".
>
>Is it that people are criticizing deviations from the norm? Some
>people will, but those people also will run into defenders. Since we
>don't *have* a body of 'new' IF, it's very hard to assume that it will
>be rejected.

Indeed. While I think that there is some truth to David's arguments, I also
believe that he's severly overstating his case. 

David, could you please give us a few examples of works of IF that
failed not due to technical limitations (if "The Legend Lived" failed
in way, it was _possibly_ because technical problems led people to
avoid playing it - but I don't think you can count "Legend" as a
failure) or to inherent weakness of writing (let's face it: *most* IF,
traditional or not, is not very well written), but entirely because it
failed to conform to the audience's anticipations?

But of course there *are* people criticizing "deviations from the
norm".  From *any* norm. There's apparently a subset of the IF
community for whom the Scott Adams games still are the norm - only a
month or so ago, there were several people stating, in this very
group, that a game shouldn't have too good a parser, or it might
detract from the important parts (viz.  the puzzles). But the fact
that there are people who think anything beyond a two-word parser is
oversophistication, we don't stop trying to improve our user
interfaces, do we? 
-- 
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se)
