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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Planetfall Update Again
Message-ID: <erkyrathDyMw0v.nt@netcom.com>
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Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 05:46:07 GMT
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Trevor Barrie (tbarrie@cycor.ca) wrote:
> >> I don't see this as much as you do, I guess.  Graphic games are
> >> potentially weaker than well-written text adventures because pasting 
> >> an image on the screen takes away the power of the imagination,

> >   That, and, since everything you can do has to be rendered onscreen,
> >there are fewer possibilities of what you can do in the game.  The user
> >can never do the unexpected.

> The user can never do the unexpected in a text adventure game either. The
> difference is that in a text game you can anticipate a lot more things.

And, if the beta-testers think up something unexpected, you can easily 
add in a response for it. In a graphic game this ranges from nearly 
impossible to "give me a break -- the actors went home six months ago, 
and they want twenty thousand dollars per shooting day to come back."

The CG-rendered part of the game is just as bad. "You want us to re-render
*what*? With *what* changed? It'll be done in two years, if you kill
everyone in all the other projects which are scheduled to use the SGI box
right now." 

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
