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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: [inform] conversation menus
Message-ID: <G5zHox.4Ay@world.std.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 19:19:45 GMT
References: <G5z7M8.7o7@world.std.com> <3A439394.77F8@adamcadre.ac>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:81671

Adam Cadre  <reply@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
>Sean Barrett wrote:
>> Does anyone have any recommendations for a system to do
>> menu-driven conversations in the style of Rameses or BAP?
>> phtalkoo.h looks more geared to "known list of topics"
>> than menu-mazes, if you know what I mean
>
>I haven't looked at phtalkoo very closely, since I generally prefer the
>phototalk model of all conversation in the same place.  But I believe
>that for either phtalkoo.h or phototalk.inf, setting it up as a "known
>list of topics" is purely a matter of content.  You can just as easily
>replace entries like ">ASK WAITER ABOUT SPECIALS" with "~Never mind
>about the menus -- what are today's specials?~"

Ok, I need to expand on "if you know what I mean".  The phototalk
model of conversations is that each character has a list of things
you might say to them, and you turn them on and off individually.

The "menu maze" or CYOA style has a number of totally independent
conversational moments with the character, each with their own
list of choices of things to say.  You can implement this kind
of conversation with a phototalk-style system, but you'd be constantly
disabling-all-the-current-ones-and-enabling-a-bunch-of-new-ones
in a very silly way, when it makes a lot more sense to have them
grouped already and just say 'have the conversation involving
this bunch'.

>Now, if you're set on using object hierarchies, that's something else
>again.

Burdening the user/programmer with the task of keeping track of
a bunch of numeric identifiers is bug-prone and makes her task
slower; indeed, not only have we long ago moved away from
referring to, say, objects and rooms by a unique numeric
identifier, but systems such as Inform allow you to not even
give them a unique name, e.g. scenery you create in the right
place using the "->" notation. So it makes lots of sense to
me to use object hierarchies and leave most conversation
elements unnamed, providing symbolic names for the ones you
want to manipulate from code. So yeah, you could say I'm
set on it.

SeanB
