Re: [MUD-Dev] (fwd) Re: Issues from the digests and Wout's list

[Raz <muddyraz#mushroom,demon.co.uk>]

On Tue, 29 Apr 1997 19:33:59 PST8PDT, Chris L wrote (quoting me):

> >Remember the old, single-player text adventures, particularly the
> >later games from Magnetic Scrolls/Rainbird?
[...]
> They are also all single user systems turn based systems, where the
> definition of state is extremely distinct and nothing is going to
> happen while the user is sitting there at a prompt picking his nose. 
> Multi-user realtime systems don't have a lot of that advantage.  The
> definition of state is a lot more gray, and that state is highly
> unstable dependant on other's realtime actions.

Very strong point, of course, though I've recently started thinking that, in
practice,  perhaps this won't always be such a major problem...

I guess I'm writing off the cuff here, and not thinking of every possible
situation, but I reckon that the goal is to have a finished parser which,
even if the 'state' the user is in at the point that the parser prompts them
to resolve ambiguity changes significantly, won't leave the player in a
'dangerous' situation.

If it handles, or rather, is informed of these changes and responds
intelligently, I'd hope that there shouldn't be too much problem.

An example, one player on the left, one player on the right:
(no proportional fonts, please ;) )

 > n

 You're in a room; it seems it was
 created on naught but a whim.
 A big bag and a small bag lie here.

 > get bag                             > n
 Which bag - the big one or the small
 one?                                  You're in a room; it seems it was
                                       created on naught but a whim.
 >                                     A big bag and a small bag lie here.
 A tall, female human enters.          A lean, male human is here.

 >                                     > get big bag
 The female human picks up the big     You pick up the big bag.
 bag.

 > big
 It doesn't seem to be here anymore,
 it appears you took too long!

The above seems to be a generally smooth handling of that particular
situation. Obviously, nicer interaction could be passed to the two
participants - the parser could respond to the male human in the last
instance "The big bag was just taken by the female human, take the small one
instead?" or, better, offer this prompt the instant the female takes the
bag.

And because the parser doesn't/shouldn't *require* a particular response
from the player, you can just as easily respond 'yes' or 'no', give up and
wander off, or pull out your sword and stick it through the pesky woman's
ribs.

Perhaps there will be situations that can't be resolved smoothly... come up
with some and we can try and plan a chain of events that get through them =)

Raz