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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: What's this thing we call AI?
Message-ID: <GJtoFM.E0v@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:50:09 GMT
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OKB -- not okblacke <brenbarn@aol.comRemove> wrote:
>Ooer.  I hardly think that "altering the story" per se is the end-all and
>the be-all of interactivity.

Well. Abstracting for a moment, a system which is interactive but
for which the responses are not at all altered based on what the
user does can be said to be "interactive", but I think it pretty
clearly lies at the non-interactive end of the interactivity
continuum. (Example: press any key for next page.)

Since there are essentially no games that exhibit interactivity on
the scale I'm talking about (perhaps the C64 game "King of Chicago"),
we are forced to guess. My guess is that micro-gameplay which is
at the interactive end of the interactive spectrum PLUS story which
is at the interactive end of the interactive spectrum "leverages
interactivity the best", and I think it's painfully obvious why I
would suppose that. I'm really not clear from your reply exactly why
you're asserting (according to my terminology) that micro-gameplay
which is at the interactive end of the interactive spectrum PLUS
story which is at the non-interactive end of the interactive spectrum
is better, since you don't give any details.

Certainly as long as computers can't write good stories, the story
written by the computer will not be as effective as the story written
by the human. But appealing to that fact for this discussion is
begging the question. And again I refer you to the interactive
human storyteller scenario, who doesn't make use of "side extras"
or pull all the branches back to a common ending.

Note also that I'm not asserting that a human interactive storyteller's
story is a better story qua story than a traditional story--only that
it is a better interactive experience.

SeanB
