Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news-out.uswest.net!uunet!chi.uu.net!nyc.uu.net!world!buzzard
From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: you people are masochists: on quitting
Message-ID: <G46GJH.Fv2@world.std.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 16:30:52 GMT
References: <G45vtz.791@world.std.com> <8v35dd$aeg$1@nntp.Stanford.EDU> <slrn91afog.71.cerutti@fiad06.norwich.edu>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Lines: 50
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:58561

Neil:
>Tina:
>>SeanB:
>>>  Planet of the Infinite Minds (0:35)
>>>     'Here's the problem: why in the world should I think
>>>     I would WANT to create a library at the end of time?
>>>     It's just a guess-the-action problem.'
>>
>>See, I thought this was obvious. It was one of the FIRST things
>>I tried before I even got to the correct location, and the
>>resulting message was fairly clear on the point that I needed to
>>be somewhere else to do it.
>
>You're told in the intro that you have worked at the library so
>long that you can visualize it to the last detail -- though
>wierdly it's phrased.
>
>You find out that you can create things, but only things that you
>can visualize to the last detail.
>
>It was a case of having a hammer and only one nail, as far as I
>can tell.

Yes.  My complaint is that the action was unmotivated,
not that it was unguessable.

I was trying to keep the original post brief; here are my
full notes on the game [and yes, I never wrote down a (b)]

    Ok, in a game which insists that I must pick up a video
    before putting it in a vcr, and which insists I must get
    up before opening a door, I am *prevented* from first getting
    the wearing of time before wearing it?  Sigh.

    Umm, create library, yeah right.  Oh, sure, the intro says
    "picture it to a detail", but (a) obviously the character
    can't picture every word in every book.  He can imagine a
    library full of blank books, but why can't he imagine a
    blank key, then?  Ok, to be fair, when the create verb was
    first offered to me, I even thought of "create library".
    Here's the problem: why in the world should I think I would
    WANT to create a library at the end of time?  It's just a
    guess-the-action problem.

Obviously this was a problem with the game the whole way
through; nothing was motivated.  The moment when I quit
was when the frustration factor over that issue rose high
enough; when I had felt like I had played long enough.

SeanB
