XYZZYnews Issue #20
http://www.xyzzynews.com/
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Contents:
** Hollow Voice
** Top 10 Picks for IF on the Web
** Letters
** And the Winner Is...:
Results of the XYZZYnews Essay Contest
** Scott Adams: Storytelling in Computer
Games -- Past, Present, and Future
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HOLLOW VOICE
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Dear readers,
I'm sending this update on the heels of my return from my recent trip to
Russia. It was amazing, and certainly different from any country I've
visited before. We went to so many intriguing places -- a company town
built around a nuclear power plant, an orphanage, a 500-year-old
settlement where we were the first American visitors they'd ever had --
in addition to the usual tourist attractions like the Kremlin and the
Hermitage Museum.
The main purpose of the visit was a cultural exchange: The men's chorus
that my husband sings in performed concerts all over St. Petersburg, and
the group leaders taught classes to Russian musicians and academic
types. For my part, I lugged around costumes for the guys, handed out
little pins and giveaways to everyone we met, especially the kids, and
generally played the diplomat at the many social events (oh, how those
speeches went on and on...!). The concert audiences were so amazing and
appreciative... it truly made me feel like we were living up to the
group's mission statement -- namely, to keep the whole world singing.
Part of what kept me in such good humor during the trip was having the
opportunity to play a long list of text adventure games (and even making
a huge dent in Heroine's Mantle) during the long bus rides, airline
travel, and jet-lag-induced insomnia. With regular battery recharges, my
Philips Velo and its reasonably sized keyboard definitely came through!
In other news, I'd like to encourage your day-to-day comments on what
games you're playing, what you're writing, and your general thoughts and
feelings about text games at the new XYZZYnews discussion boards set up
at
http://pub86.ezboard.com/bxyzzynews --enjoy!
Until next issue, happy gaming!
Eileen Mullin
[email protected]
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Issue # 20 Top 10 Picks for
Interactive Fiction on the Web
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Help! Where do I download IF stuff for my computer?
http://www.bright.net/~jonadab/if/
Interactive Fiction According to Fredrik
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6116/if.html
Interactive Fiction Basement
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7442/if/
Interactive Fiction - Suite 101.com
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/interactive_fiction
The Keepers
http://www.dan.hartland.btinternet.co.uk/hotel/
PalmPilot IF Adventure Games
http://www.fortunecity.com/underworld/rpg/22/
Plugh Main Page
http://games.xyzzy.net/
Reviews from Trotting Krips
http://members.dencity.com/petro/reviews.html
Solving Electronic Adventures
(this issue's retro link...)
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/solving.html
Writing and Playing Inform Games
http://www.surfhouston.com/if/
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LETTERS
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Hi there,
I was really sorry to hear you stop the PDF version of XYZZYnews. Although I
can understand your reasons I still am sorry you don't publish the mag in
that way anymore. I loved the way it looked like a real magazine and I
printed out every issue you published so far to take with me.
Well, anyway, keep up the good work and hopefully sometime in the future
you will find the time and a good reason to do the PDF thing again...
Cheers,
Harry
[email protected]
----------------------------------------------------
Greetings,
My name is Konstantinos Evgenidis and I have developed a software
product suitable for creating and playing text based role-playing games.
It is distributed as freeware and is currently in beta testing.
It is quite different from other similar products since as a text based
rpg is not online and also includes a visual editor.It has no command
line and many other unique features.
You may visit
http://www.legendarytales.com/ for more information.
Sincerely,
Konstantinos Evgenidis
[email protected]
----------------------------------------------------
Dear XYZZYnews,
At Synapse Entertainment, registered users can provide
a description of their game, upload new releases and development versions of
their games, provide current news about their projects, include changelogs
with every file for informing users of all changes to their game, post a
list of all the game's developers and email addresses, and much more! The
Project Manager is a very powerful, very easy to use rescource for all text
game developers.
The Project Manager is not only for developers, however. Text game
enthusiasts are able to search for games by game type, operating system,
title, or keywords in game descriptions. For a broader search, users can
'Browse' the entire list of games currently hosted on Synapse Entertainment
by utilizing our easy-to-use navigation bar on the left side of any page in
the Project Manager. And to make watching your favorite game easier, you can
simply type in the game's ID and click 'View' to instantly see the most
recent update of that project. Also, users can rate their favorite, or least
favorite, games from 1 to 5 using the poll provided on each project's page!
Andrew Dietz
[email protected]
/--------------------------------------------------------------------\
NEW XYZZYnews MESSENGER BAGS
Help support the XYZZYnews Web site and look cool with our new,
limited edition Messenger Bags. They're great for the office or
school. Check them out in our online store today, because after
September 30th, they'll be history. Visit
http://www.cafepress.com/xyzzynews/ to see for yourself...!
\--------------------------------------------------------------------/
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AND THE WINNER IS...
Results of the XYZZYnews Essay Contest:
What's your most memorable gaming experience?
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In July, we held an online essay contest: Write about your most
memorable interactive fiction experience. Contributors had their choice
of prizes: A copy of the Masterpieces of Infocom CD or any item of
XYZZYNews-logo'ed merchandise. And now, without further ado...
Madness and the Minotaur by
[email protected]
As an adventure game addict, I thought Madness and the Minotaur was the
perfect choice. Random and gigantic, I'd be lost for months!
I prepared my bedroom as I usually did. Paper was close by for maps.
Pencils were ready. My parents (for I was 15 at the time) were busy. I
had the night to myself. I had read the directions in the car on the way
home. After typing CLOADM MADNESS and a quick EXEC to start up, I was
on my way.
I'm not sure if I felt it first or heard it first. A rumble that came
from all around. I dashed out my bedroom confused. My dad simply
answered that it was an earthquake. It lasted for what seemed like
forever. We went outside. Chatted with the neighbors. Checked the house
over.
All was well until my mother yelled to me, "I don't think that's very
funny!" I followed her to my room. There, the green computer screen was
filled with the same phrase over and over. "The ground is shaking!" It
was a common occurrence in the game, though I wasn't yet aware of that.
I paused and marveled at the power of my 16K computer with extended
color BASIC. After all, it had determined that there was an earthquake!
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SCOTT ADAMS: STORYTELLING IN COMPUTER GAMES
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
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Scott Adams, creator of the classic computer game "Adventureland,"
visited the University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire on May 3, 2001 for a
panel on "Storytelling and Computer Games: Past, Present and
Future." Dennis G. Jerz compiled full-text transcripts -- excerpted in
this issue of XYZZYnews -- and audio downloads of a 2-hr panel.
The complete transcripts can be found -- and will continue to be updated
as necessary -- at
http://www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/if/adams/.
Browse the table of contents and excerpts below for highlights...
---------------------------------------------
1. Brief History of Interactive Fiction
---------------------------------------------
Dennis G. Jerz offers a brief history of narrative gaming, and discusses
how game development affects electronic storytelling.
Jerz: I would like to extend a special welcome to our panelist of honor,
Mr. Scott Adams, creator of "Adventureland," the 1979 text game; founder
of Adventure International, a tremendously influential computer gaming
company dating from the early 1980's. And for those of you who might not
be familiar with the Scott Adams name we'll say first of all, not
Dilbert -- different guy, same name.
Having Scott here to share with us his thoughts on computer games is not
unlike what it would be like to have Alfred Hitchcock here to talk about
suspense films or Jane Austen here to talk about the history of the
British novel. If you don't [think you] know Scott Adams, you still do
if you've [ever] looked at a computer game, because computer games and
designers of computer games can't get away from the effect of people
like Scott Adams. There are only a handful of names up on that tier.
And Scott, correct me if I'm wrong, but you did market the first
computer game commercially, or as far as we know. Others were available
online but he's the first one who started making a living off of it.
I'd also like to introduce Amanda Fullan, who is a student in my Writing
Electronic Texts class, and her project is writing a text-based computer
game. And she's had no programming experience before my class and has
done a really good job of getting all the things together; so, come on
in, Amanda. And also, Jake Okun, another UWEC student, who has spent
time working for three graphic computer game companies, and does beta
testing now.
In the mid 1970's Will Crowther, a programmer and an amateur caver,
having just gone through a divorce, was looking for a way to connect
with his two young children. Over the course of a few weekends he
slapped together a text based cave exploration game that featured a sort
of guide/narrator who talked in full sentences and who understood simple
two word commands that came really close to natural English. Crowther's
children reportedly loved the game. [Actually, Crowther later told me in
e-mail that his children only humored their father. --DGJ] They were
excited that they could talk to a machine, and even more, that the
machine could talk back to them. Some time later Stanford graduate
student Don Woods came along, and he came across an unfinished copy of
this game on a mainframe computer. He expanded it and released it on the
Internet. (Yes, there was an Internet back in those days.)
Scott was one of many [other] people who came across this [version of
the] game, on a mainframe machine that you could use [only] after hours
to play games. They were huge, refrigerator-sized -- or
multiple-refrigerator-sized things. He wrote "Adventureland," a tiny
game, as I mentioned; the first commercial computer game, as far as
anyone knows. It was dinky, because it had to be very small to be played
on the ridiculously small, cruel memory restrictions of computers at the
time.
He sold his first copy by taking out an ad in a computer magazine.
Shortly after that he formed the company Adventure International, which
released many other titles, some by other authors in the first half of
the 80's.
You used the computer by entering a command, and I remember some
commands from those days. You could type "dir *.*", or you'd type
something like "run hello.bas" and the computer told you, with a textual
output, whether the action was successful. If it wasn't successful it
didn't tell you how to fix it, it just said "error" or "abort, retry, or
fail." You could type anything you wanted at the prompt. You could type
"hi there". You could type "bleep you" -- and boy, did I, many
times. (Laughter.)
The classic Scott Adams computer game was text only. The computer
displayed a few lines of description. Here's an example:
You're in a dismal swamp. Obvious exits: north,
south, east, west, up. You can also see: cypress trees
-- evil smelling mud -- swamp gas -- floating patch
of oily slime -- chiggers. (Adams, "Adventureland"
1979)
You played the game by entering commands. You would type something like
"climb tree", or "take slime" and the computer told you whether or not
the action was successful. You could type anything in at the prompt. You
could type "take tree". You could type "eat chiggers". Not everything
worked, and the computer wouldn't always tell you how to make it work.
That was "fun."
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2. Scott Adams Speaks
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Scott plays "Adventureland" with the audience, describes the technical
restrictions on computers in the late 70s, and explains the value of
user-testing interactive works.
Adams: Do you guys know what 16k means? You all have computers right?
And they have a couple of hundred megs of memory right now. What's a
meg? Audience: Somewhere around 1024k Adams: Approximately a
thousand k of memory. Shrink that down to 16k -- that's what these early
computers had. There was not a great deal of waste in the early
programs. All my early games were two-word sentences -- verb, noun
oriented. The locations, descriptions were sparse, but I always tried to
use a location that people can relate to. Lets play a game here. We're
going to play a real fast game of Adventureland. I'll be the computer
and I want you to tell me what to do in a verb, noun situation. Here's
your opening:
I'm in a forest; I see here trees. Obvious exits: N, S, E, W. Tell me
what to do.
Audience: Go north.
Adams: Go north. Ok. I'm in a forest. I see trees. Obvious exits are
N, S, E, and W.
Audience: Go north.
Adams: Go north. I'm in a forest. I see trees. Obvious exits are N,
S, E, and W.
Audience: Go south.
Adams: Excellent. I'm in a forest. I see trees...
Audience: Examine tree.
Adams: I see a tree. It looks climbable. Obvious exits: N, S, E, and
W.
Audience: Climb the tree.
Adams: Two words! Two words! We don't let you get away with anything
here. Ok, climb tree. I'm in the top of the tree. To the east I see a
meadow. Obvious exits: Down.
Audience: Go down.
Adams: I'm in a forest. I see trees... Audience: Go east.
Adams: I am in a large sunny meadow. Sleeping here, a large sleeping
dragon. I see a sign. Obvious exits: E, W and S.
Audience: Eat dragon!
Adams: Doesn't look very tasty! Tell me what to do.
Audience: Read sign.
Adams: Sign says: "In many cases mud is good in others..."
I think you're getting the idea here.
This is the actual way the game plays and the idea is you go through the
game; you have an adventure. You have a puzzle-solving situation. You'll
meet a lot of things you've got to deal with. That's what these early
games were. Keep in mind, when these games were written and the the
first games I released were on the TRS 80. Anybody here know what that
is?
Audience: (Laughing)
Adams: Ok, we've got a couple. This is a very early pioneer computer
put out by RadioShack. "TRS" stood for Tandy RadioShack. It was 16k of
memory, a Z80 processor (which was an old 8-bit processor), and a
cassette drive, as he was saying, that you loaded your software in from.
And a monitor. Well, the monitor came with the machine, which was very
nice; the thing was was that it wasn't a TV. It didn't even have the
resolution of a TV because it couldn't even draw pictures. It had text,
period. You couldn't do the pictures if you wanted to, unless you wanted
to have little black and white dots. I mean, big black and white dots.
So this was where the industry started and that's what the games were
like. They have grown since.
The amazing thing about these adventure games is, I still get fan mail
from people that are playing them today, which just boggles my mind. But
the game is still basically the same. I'm in a forest. I see trees.
Everyone relates to that. You can relate to the picture. Later I put
pictures in my games and made graphic versions of my games, and you know
I got fan mail saying, "I liked the text better. My pictures look better
than yours." Your mind gives a much better picture than the finest
artist.
There is tremendous capability in the human mind. Now if I said I was in
a bluh-bluh-bluh, that doesn't do anything. But we all know what a
forest is and we all have certain expectations. The interesting thing
is, your expectation of a forest and her expectation of a forest could
be totally different. So the game's got to be aware of that.
The other thing was, I had to be aware of what the users might and might
not say. Which was a very important part of getting a game ready was
beta testing. Normally I would sit down, I would come up with a theme I
wanted for a game. Old West, space, Count Dracula, whatever. I'd set my
theme. I'd set my locations. And I'd start putting items in, and putting
in puzzles. I'd get the game about two-thirds done and then I would
stop.
The next one-third of the game literally came from the people I gave to
to play the game. I'd watch how they played the game. I'd watch what
they'd try to do with the items that I never thought they might try to
do. [I said,] "Wow, what a good idea! I think I'll put that in the
game." I literally did. So the games were written by the users.
If you guys ever get out into the world and you are doing something
creative like this, making entertainment for people, don't design the
whole thing yourself. Let the people you plan to use it do some of the
design. You'll get a for better product out of it. Because they are
going to do things you didn't think of. Two heads are better than one. A
hundred heads are far better than one. You keep control of the direction
it's taking, and let there be creative input coming in.
---------------------------------------------
3-4. Panelists; Audience Q and A
---------------------------------------------
Question: How much have you felt story-telling has improved in video
games over time?
Adams: There have been a lot of different games out there. Of recent
note probably one game sticks in my mind more than anything else, two
games actually, as fantastic storytelling opportunities that they took
advantage of.
One of them, the first one, was "Half-Life." Anyone hear of that? Ok.
Anyone here play it? Hands, hands. Ok, a number of you.
Basically what Half-Life is, is a science fiction first-person shooter.
You're plunked down in this world with literally nothing, and you're
thrown into a world where a disaster happened of an extra terrestrial
nature and you're going to save the world, literally. The thing is, the
writers did a very good job. They suck you into the story. You, after a
while, feel like you are the player[-character]. There was something
awesome about walking down this darkened corridor, seeing this monster
coming -- no, I'm sorry, walking down this brightly lit corridor, just
having accomplished this great task, and I'm walking back and all of a
sudden, one by one, the lights start going out. And the next thing I
knew is I hear a roar down at the end of the corridor. I was like this
in front of the computer, OHH!!
The artist who wrote that sucked me into his world. He was telling me a
story and I was living it. That was excellent.
Another game that recently came out that also did the same thing was
"Deus Ex". Yes, it's from the old Greek [actually, Latin --DGJ] "deus ex
machina," which meant basically "from God", but it meant the hook that
would come in and rescue the protagonist when they're put into a
situation that they couldn't get out of...
Jerz: God from the machine, deus ex machina.
Adams: A lot of people will pronounce it "deuce ex," but the game
itself was unique and one of the first to do it and you'll see a lot of
them coming out that are going to imitate it. You're put into the same
type of thing, first-person shooter -- except it's not. You can go in
and solve any one of the problems. You can be the guy with guns blazing,
blowing out the marines at the front door, or you can decide you want to
play this as a computer hacker, come around the back, hack the computer,
and have their weapons that are there to protect them turn and shoot
them. You can decide that you want to play it as a thief and sneak
through the tunnels and through the air-conditioning ducts. You play the
game not exactly the way you want to, because there are constraints, but
your freedom to play the game is greatly expanded.
This was tremendously difficult for the game developers. Not only did
they have to provide all the different routes in, they had to make sure
that every person that was playing the game and wanted to choose a
particular route would have that available to them. Also, as you played
the game, the character you were playing would grow, and you'd come to
choices. He was like The Bionic Man, he came to section where he could
get implants. But depending on which implant you pick now, that would
mean later you can't pick a different implant, so a lot of choices were
made, a lot of branches. But the whole thing has to come to a conclusion
at the very end, and that was kind of hard to do. I see a head nodding,
did you like that one?
Audience: I love that game. The four different endings I thought
were amazing.
Adams: Exactly. Not one ending, four endings that you could choose
from.
This is one future of interactive fiction or interactive game playing.
The other one is, as he was mentioning, is the massive-multiplayer
online role playing games. I recently got sucked into, it was about
three weeks, I haven't been playing it long, EverQuest. If you've never
tried a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, that is
something worth trying.
Right now, it used to cost $50 for the game and $10 a month to play,
right now they brought back the classic version. It costs $10 to buy
the game, they give you the first month for free, and you can cancel it
at any time. So basically, you can try the game for $10 for a month.
It¹s extremely addicting because it¹s not only do you go in and you¹re
fighting the monsters. That¹s fun. Everybody wants to fight monsters,
sure. What you¹re doing is you¹re building a character. You basically
come into the world in a loin cloth or a bikini, depending on the sex or
gender you¹re playing, and a couple of cents in your pocket and a wooden
club and you go from there. You¹re not just fighting the NPC¹s, which
are non-player characters. It¹s the PCs in there.
At any given time when I log on to the EverQuest world there are
literally 50 to 100,000 people playing at the same time. Now we¹re not
all playing in the same world, they are divided up into multiple
servers. The world that I¹m playing in usually has about 2000 people
online at the same time.
So you have all these people playing together. We¹re not only relating
to the monsters, we¹re relating to each other and that is the
fascinating part.
Here¹s an example. First day I¹m playing this character, I get into the
world and there I am in my loin cloth and my wooden club and I said,
'I¹m going to role play.' You can role-play or you can be an avatar.
Role-playing means that I am a creature that really lives in this world.
I¹m acting
Somebody comes up to me and says, 'Hey man, what level are you?' And I
say, "Excuse me young sir, I am a new apprentice and do not know what
this level is that thou talks about."
"I said what level are you!!!"
"Please do not shout at me I am just a lowly apprentice and do not
understand this strange talk."
Jumping up and down, "What level are you!!!"
By this time he has attracted a crowd around us, I don¹t know why. So we
have other players standing around looking at this guy jumping up and
down, yelling at me, "He won¹t tell me what level he is!!"
(Sniveling voice) "I am a lowly apprentice. Please sir, don¹t hurt me."
A woman walks up dressed in big flowing robes and a crown on her head
and a scepter in her hand. Obviously not a new player. And she starts
talking to me and she says, ³Is there a problem here?²
And I said, ³O noble lady, please I am but an apprentice and do not
understand the strange ways of this land.²
We start talking back and forth, meanwhile this guy is over in the
corner³What level are you!!²
(Laughter.)
One-track mind, OK.
Talking to the nice lady, every thing going well, every once in a while
she would turn and say, ³Shut up!²
(Laughter.)
Still no good, he¹s still bouncing up and down.
She turns and she gives me 10 pieces of platinum. A platinum is
approximately a thousand dollars in this game world. I have the
equivalent of fifty cents in my pocket, starting as a game player. She
suddenly gives me ten thousand dollars. This is a tremendous boost.
By the way, when you go into this game, it doesn¹t matter who you are,
rich, poor, whatever. Everybody starts the game at the same level,
starts with the same things. Everything you want, you have to get for
yourself or have somebody give to you as you build up your character.
Socialization is very important in this game. It is amazing.
So she gives me the 10 pieces of platinum and I turn to the other guy
and he¹s looking at me... (Crying sound.) She just gave me a small
fortune and he¹s going, ³What level are you?²
So I decide to take pity on him and I go OOC mode, out of character
mode. It means that anything I say, I¹m deliberately not role playing,
I¹m talking person-to-person, and I say to him: ³I¹m role playing, I¹m
not really mad at you, I¹m not upset -- I¹m just simply role-playing a
character."
And he types back, ³What¹s role playing?²
Audience: (Gasping and murmuring.)
Adams: Very serious. So I proceed to explain to him and all of the
sudden on his avatar was like ³DING². A light bulb goes on over his head
-- and he¹s role-playing now.
He gets into it a little slowly but he falls into it and we play that
night. I played with him. So I was having fun. We went out and killed
monsters and looted their corpses. And he was a level 7! Ooh! I was a
level 1. So he could go after monsters I didn¹t dare attack. And he got
some loot that there was no way I could get. And he gave 90% of it to
me. He was really generous and friendly.
At the end of the day I said to him ³This is really nice. You were a
tremendous friend to me.² I kept calling him Young Sir. ³You were a
tremendous friend to me, Young Sir. I shall always remember you when I
become a famous fighter.² And I had a plan to become a tailor. I know,
sounds funny, but hey, it pays well -- let me tell you.
And I said, ³Maybe someday I¹ll be able to help you out.² And he says,
³Ha ha ha, I¹m a level 7. You¹re a 1. You¹ll never be able to do
anything for me. Never mind, just forget it.²
Yesterday, or just last week, I was playing and I ran across him again.
I¹m a level 12 now, he¹s a level 7 still. I was able to help him
tremendously and I told him it was because of the nice things he did for
me while I was first playing.
The key to this whole thing is, though: I¹m getting sucked into this
world these designers created, and I¹m creating the story as I go along.
And there are a thousand other people doing the same thing at the same
time. We¹ve got guilds; we¹ve got groups that play together. It is
utterly amazing, what is happening.
The graphics are still relatively primitive compared to going to see a
movie or something like that. But the interaction between people is what
makes the game a lot of fun. And there are those people who get in that
simply go in, kill the monster, get what you can and get out. That¹s
fine. You can play it that way. They don¹t know what role-playing is.
For those who jump into the world and wrap themselves in it and want to
become an actor, it¹s fascinating.
Now... you had a question.
Audience Member: Yes, I played Ultima Online, which was another
online role-playing game. I played that back in school and I thought it
was interesting how we would travel different worlds that you could play
on all basically the same map, but eventually the game got so popular
that you could build houses. All the land where the people would run
around and kill deer and do stuff like that it was all being overrun by
houses
Adams: It was all being built up.
Audience: Yeah, actually you had people like lobbying for
conservation and it was kind of funny.
Adams: Could you imagine this in a role playing game? The Green
Party! Yeah!!
Yeah, absolutely and these types of things happen. And you¹ll get
another group that comes in. There¹s a very popular thing, in Ultima
Online originally, and it still is, players, meaning humans on the game,
could kill each other. Normally, you¹re playing on the game and you walk
up and you want to kill someone, you can¹t. You fight. Fight it out till
the death. Alright. EverQuest came along and they thought, this is
driving a lot of people away. They don¹t like the inter-player conflict
so we¹re going to make it optional. In EverQuest you can be a player
killer, or not be a player killer. And if you¹re choosing not to be a
player killer the other players, in general, can¹t hurt you. But they
may not help you either. In general the majority of the players are not
player killers in most of EverQuest. But there are a couple of servers
where anybody logging on to that server is in a player killer world, and
there¹s no choice. So they have it both ways for the people that want to
play it.
Jerz: Jake, really quick, you have experience in the industry, the
stuff that we¹ve been talking about, graphics versus story-telling;
what¹s your experience of that from your side?
Jake Okun: I¹m more the opposite of you guys.
I designed games and stuff that were, lacked form and lacked substance
in a sense where the player is seeking immediate gratification. I¹m
talking about first person shooters and stuff. And the 3D graphics.
When you essentially, again, Ultima Online and stuff, those games lack a
form of story line. In that sense, consumers can replay the game. A game
like Quake 2, those games are still really popular, because there¹s no
story line and it¹s constantly...
Adams: Dynamic.
Okun: dynamic. It¹s replayable. You don¹t play through the story
line once because there is no story line.
Adams: Like Deus Ex or Half-Life. Good example, you play through
Half-Life and you¹re not going to play it again. You¹ve already played
through Half-Life.
Jerz Story takes a lot of resources. When you run out of story,
you¹re done with the game.
Adams: Plus you can only put so much story in there. And if you¹re
story driven you¹ve got a one-shot game, so it¹s hard -- how do you make
it? Now Deus Ex sort of changed that, because then you can replay it
being a different type of character. But still there¹s only one type of
story in there.
Okun: And even most single player games out there now, you¹re talking
about a max playtime of 48 hours, and to invest that much time and
resources in developing story lines just is not practical these days.
Adams: Now there are some that are different. A good example would be
Baldur's Gate 2, which recently came out. It¹s a fantasy role-playing
game, something like Ultima Online, but single player. You go in and you
control up to 6 characters and you have a story through it.
They literally have close to two or three hundred hours of game play in
there and what¹s happened is some people say that¹s too much. That they
get tired of it, doing the same thing over and over. So sometimes
there¹s got to be a balance between the two to. 48 hours is an average.
There are some games that are even shorter. 20 hours and somebody says,
³Hey, I paid 50 bucks for this game, and I only played it for 20 hours,
and I wore it out."
Jerz: Amanda, you are writing a game for my class; tell us a little
bit about your experiences, learning what gives... what you have to get
rid of, in order to use the strengths of the interactive media.
Amanda Fullan: Well, a lot of the problems I ran into in the
beginning was learning the program language. Like Dr. Jerz said before,
I¹d never done any programming before and this is very new to me.
So, a lot of my creations were limited by my programming ability and so
I originally wrote out a transcript of things that I wanted to happen in
the game and when I went to program it, there would be glitches in
things that I couldn¹t put into those things that I wanted.
So I ended up cutting out a lot of that original material and some of it
is stupid things like you forget to put in a comma and the whole thing
won¹t work. For someone who¹s not used to that kind of thing it¹s very,
very frustrating.
Adams: Computers are very, very literal. If you say one thing they
take it exactly the way you say it and not what you meant.
Fullan: And so that works with your processes...
Adams: It plays havoc with your creative process!
(Laughter.)
Jerz: Oh, Scott, could you tell us the story about the bear and the
parser.
Adams: Ok, here¹s a very good example of an unintended side effect. I
told you about my first game Adventureland. Well, to conserve space in
the 16K world, I only looked at the first three letters of the nouns and
verbs that people typed in. There¹s a section where there¹s a bear on a
ledge and you¹ve got to get past this large bear and, being a pacifistic
game, you¹re not going to be able to kill the bear no matter which way
you try. You can give it honey if you want, but honey is one of your
treasures and you¹re going to end up wasting your treasures.
Jerz: That¹s why I didn¹t get the full score!! Listen along in:
Adams: There is an alternate solution. What I wanted the player to do
was to yell at the bear, to scare it off. You could also ³scream² at the
bear too, as an acceptable synonym.
Well, I got a fan letter in that just had my whole company rolling in
the aisles. It said:
We got to that bear on the ledge. We tried giving it the honey and he
ate it up and boy that was a treasure and that was no good. So we
reloaded the saved game and we went back to that bear. We pushed that
bear, we prodded that bear, we tickled that bear, we have gotten so
upset with that bear we could get nowhere.
So we finally said "Screw the bear!!" And the game replied, "The bear is
so startled he falls off the ledge!"
(Roaring laughter.)
They thought I was a genius programmer!
(Laughter.)
Jerz: Dave, from your childhood playing Scott Adams games, do you
have any experiences like this with one puzzle that you¹ve just never
been able to solve, and you would like to ask Scott now how to get past
it?
Shih: Yeah. I hope I¹m remembering this correctly. This was around
1981 or 1982. This was before we got the IBM PC¹s. We had a TI 99/4A.
Jerz: Oh, yeah!
Shih: It came with a very expensive single sided floppy drive if you
wanted to have that. But, what most people had was a cassette recorder,
and you kind of hooked it into the computer. That¹s the way that I would
play the Scott Adams adventures and you had to get a cartridge that you
put in and you would purchase these cassette tapes with the games. The
one that I remember the most is, I think it was called "Tomb of
Horrors." I¹m not sure if "Tomb" was in the title, but there was this
moment when you were in a kind of pyramid
Adams: Pyramid of Doom.
Shih: Pyramid of Doom, right. Pyramid of Doom and you¹re supposed to
move this block somehow and I¹m not sure you¹re supposed to get on top
of the block to go through kind of a passage way, but you¹re supposed to
do something to this block and move it out of the way.
I swear I must have spent a couple of weeks (laughter) trying to figure
it out
Adams: Screw the block!
(Laughter)
Shih: I guess I should have been more profane.
(Laughter).
I was twelve.
But would you remember that situation?
Adams: A very funny thing about Pyramid of Doom.... I didn¹t write
it. This is an interesting story.
I did seven adventure games, and was starting to think about number
eight, when I get, in the mail, a letter from a fan. A fellow by the
name of Alvin Files. He¹s a lawyer. He still is, I had email from him
recently. But anyway, he was a lawyer and he loved my adventure games so
much that he disassembled my source code and figured out my system. I
couldn¹t even figure out my system. (Laughter). He literally was able
back up everything that I had done, figure out how I did it, and he
wrote an adventure game and he sent it to me. He wanted to see if it
would be alright if he sold it. And I thought wow, this guy really has
got something on the ball. To take my code, literally, and take it apart
bit by bit, and figure out what it was doing, figure out the system and
write a game.
That¹s what Pyramid of Doom was. I didn¹t write that.
Shih: Hmmm, do you have his e-mail address?
(Laughter).
Adams: Yes I do. Actually I¹ve got hint sheets on my Web site so they
can download and see how to get past it.
I did play the game and I did edit it with him. I went back and forth
and I said we can¹t do that. This is going to be a non-violent game, but
in general 80% of the work is his.
I honestly don¹t remember the stone thing.
Shih: Yeah, yeah.
Adams: So sorry. It was an interesting side note though.
Audience: What do you think of the effect of violence in video games
nowadays, how it's
Adams: Well, I play EverQuest. And in EverQuest the idea is to act and
kill the monsters. It is not graphic though. You are sitting there
swinging the knife and they're sitting there clawing at you or whatever.
You don¹t see blood going or you don¹t see blood gushing... it¹s cartoon
violence.
I have seen some graphic, very graphic games. Soldier of Fortune is one
that comes to mind, where shooting someone in the groin they kneel over,
grabbing themselves, screaming in horror. My feeling of that is it¹s too
graphic. I don¹t need that. I went to see the latest 'Hannibal' movie
and walked out halfway. I don¹t need that. I don¹t need those sort of
images burned into my head.
It¹s not fun. It¹s disgusting. There¹s by nature a violence in us, and
man is a violent animal. We¹re not herbivores. We are omnivores who are
out there. And in general the male of the species is more violent then
the female. There is a need to express that violence, whether it's in
professional sports -- let's face it, professional sports is not a
knitting club, there¹s a reason for this, that's the way it is. It¹s
man¹s violence against men, being channeled. And I can see channeling in
video games -- there¹s nothing wrong with that. Taking it to extremes
though I think is wrong, and going to cause more problems in our society
than anything else. That¹s my personal opinion.
In general, I like, myself, writing games that I know anybody can enjoy.
I don¹t have to put a label on it and say this is just for "R" rated or
"X" rated. When I do a game I just say anybody can play it, anybody can
enjoy it.
I can understand writing games for an adult situation. What I can¹t
understand is writing games that give people the desire to cause more
hurt to other people. I don¹t like it.
The games I enjoy playing are cooperative. I love playing a cooperative
game of EverQuest. I work with people, against the evil that confronts
us. I don¹t like the player-killer servers, where the desire is to go
out and kill the other players. That¹s not for me. I don¹t like that.
I¹d like to see less of it myself. I think a world that works together
and teams together against a common evil is going to be a far better
world than one where you¹re going head to head.
---
Audience Member: I'd actually like to go back to the comment David
made. Talking about these original games and I feel that what made the
game so successful wasn't necessarily the storyline, but it was more so
the thought process involved to be able to interact with the game. Like,
you spent two weeks trying to figure out how to move a block, and I
think that is what really... the challenge is what made it really
popular.
Shih: With friends too, you play these with friends and you would
have a kind of social interaction, which you don't necessarily have now.
I mean if you do have a social interaction, with certain kinds of games
you're trying to kill the other person, rather than cooperate with the
other person.
Adams: EverQuest is a good example. I work for a company now. I'm a
95 guy and I'm a basic engineer geek, okay? I may seem very outgoing
and forward here in this setting... and I can be. But my normal persona
is I'm quiet, an introvert, and I do what I'm doing and I don't really
go out to seek people. Got eighty engineers in the company. I maybe know
five or six of them.
Started playing EverQuest, we got a group of about ten players together.
I know more about them now in the three weeks that we've started playing
EverQuest together than I did in the last five years working
side-by-side with them. It's a tremendous draw to have something in
common that you're enjoying, that just brings out the social aspect of
it.
Shih: There are some new first person shooters that really stress
cooperative play
Adams: Tribes.
Shih: Yeah, or Counter Strike or games like that.
Adams: Counter Strike. Teamwork, you've got to play as a team. You
can't play it solo. You got to be a team.
Audience Member: I disagree with that. Especially going back to the
early days of computers, I think the story carried a lot of the games.
Especially text adventure games like anything from Infocom in the early
80's or games like "Portal" [a hypertext by Rob Swigart, Activision,
1986 --DGJ] that came out on a Commodore 64 and stuff like that. A lot
of those -- if it wasn't an action game, the story carried it. I mean if
it wasn't "Centipede" or something like that, I think the story carried
it.
Audience Member: I think the story did keep interest in stuff, but
what kept people coming back to the game, kept people talking about the
game, kept people interested in the game itself was the challenge.
Audience Member: To find out how the story ends.
Adams: It's like having a book and also having a puzzle that goes
with the book. Well, you can't turn the next page of the book until you
complete this puzzle. Well the puzzle is the challenge, but you're
right, the story is also a draw too, but they're both there.
Audience Member: What about the King's Quest games?
Jerz: And about this unlocking puzzles, I do assign some interactive
fiction in my class and I know that if I were assigning a regular story,
students can flip through it and get an idea of the plot and fake their
way through a quiz. But if I say, "What's the significance of the queen
in the purple section of Photopia" and somebody hasn't played it,
they're totally check-mated. There's no way that they can spill that
out. So... I know how far each of you got in these games, my students!
Audience Member: With games like Quake 3, that comes out and pushes
the game with the technology you know, and really demands a lot. Do you
think those games are significant?
Adams: This is a very good question. Final comment here.
The computers you have today, these PC's with large memory and great
video cards, do you know why they're as good as they are? It's not
because of Word, it's not because of Excel.
The computers you have today have been pushed to where they are today
for one reason only -- and that's computer games. That's what drives the
technology. You think otherwise you're kidding. It's a billion dollar
industry, easily. And it's the games that require the better
technology.
Word will run fine on a Pentium 90. Try playing Quake 3 on a Pentium 90.
[At this point, part of the audience left because the scheduled time
for the roundtable elapsed. However, the panelists remained.]
[At this point, part of the audience left because the scheduled time
for the roundtable elapsed. However, the panelists remained. --MH.]
Audience Member: With interactive fiction, do you think that as
things progress people will write interactive fiction where they don't
necessarily code every object?
Adams: Exactly right, you can't. You've got to have the tools in
place that allow you to become more and more creative. People like
Amanda here, shouldn't have to be a programmer to put into the media her
creative thoughts. Today you have to be. Five years? I don't think that
will be the case.
Audience Member: Do you think there will be a drive from the audience
for text or will it have
Adams: It doesn't matter what the game is. There will be an
underlying tool that you'll be able to use to shape, be creative as you
need to. Today, that doesn't exist. It will exist.
Audience Member: What's your favorite interactive fiction game?
Adams: Strange thing is now, I don't play text adventure games. I
don't like them. Audience: (Laughter) Adams: I find them too
boring.
Audience Member: You do?
Adams: Yeah, they're basically puzzle quests and I got over that
about twenty years ago. [Note: There's a gap in the audio file at this
point. --DGJ] EverQuest is a puzzle quest of a different nature. I like
the graphical things. I think text adventures have their place. I've
licensed my game to Warthog, they're supposed to be bringing them out on
cell phones. So there's a place for text adventures, but I think a
really good graphic adventure with really good graphics is going to be
wonderful.
Jerz: I'll just jump in here. In the last five years or so, in fact
since Graham Nelson made Inform, which is computer programming language
that allows people to write "Infocom style" computer games. Since he
released that, with a detailed manual, which just came out in the 4th
edition (handing a copy to an audience member), the interactive fiction
community on the Internet has really gone into a renaissance. I'm an
English professor type guy and I really do think there are quite a few
interactive fiction games that are definitely of the quality of at least
a short story.
Ok, we're not talking novels here, we're not talking epics or
Shakespeare, but there's just like the, I'm paraphrasing from Graham
Nelson's book but... he explains that although sort of the heyday of
interactive fiction is gone... to many people it's tedious, and I kind
of joked a little while ago, this is how we played games and it was fun
-- and everybody laughed. It was really fun. It wasn't a date... I mean
it was either that or Pong, right?
(Laughter)
In this case, there are a lot of talented authors... using the tools,
and there are plenty of text tools that allow you... For instance, if
you want to create a door, Graham Nelson has already got a library that
allows you to create a door. You don't have to deal with all the
details.
But, if you were going to write a game that had a flying pig in it, OK?
And I said, "Matt, a flying pig is dumb, make it a flying gerbil."
Search and replace, and the pig turns to a gerbil. Ok? So... revision
[is easier]. Just like the simple quote "'you are on a beach' unlocks
vistas," with the right person who is a talented storyteller a and
talented programmer, one person can create an interactive masterpiece,
whereas EverQuest requires a lot of people.
If somebody, a computer game manufacturer wants to innovate, wants to
try something unusual, millions and millions of dollars are at stake.
And the computer gaming industry is going to get a choke hold on people
who want to try something radical -- unless there is freeware, open
source, things like Inform.
Low risk areas. If I come out with a computer game that experiments
with a new kind on NPC and it's not a game, it's just a "sit down and
have a conversation with an NPC," then that raises the bar for all other
NPC's. Emily Short has done that -- a short story called "Galatea."
The Pygmalion myth, Pygmalion creates Galatea, and falls in love with
her. You are an [art critic] walking into an art gallery, and there's
the statue of Galatea come to life. It's a branching conversation tree.
It's a moody character study. It's not a game. It's a different kind of
textual experience. It's as different from graphic computer games as
poetry is from novels, as novels are from rap music.
But, within that realm, within that new realm of interactive fiction,
people are experimenting. They're trying new things. They're learning
how to tell a story when you've got to manage all these multiple
branches, so that text games don't have to be tedious. You know, for me
sometimes a dungeon crawl is very, very tedious, but there are times
when I want to map that maze. You know? Sometimes finishing a crossword
puzzle -- what have you done when you've finished a crossword puzzle?
You've finished a crossword puzzle. That's all you need to do. And,
sometimes I want to frag bad guys.
I don't always need a story...
Interactive fiction of twenty years ago -- it really has changed quite a
lot. And there's an annual competition, if you only have time to play a
couple of interactive fiction games, look up the interactive fiction
annual competition and play the two or three winners each year, and
you'll see how far interactive fiction has come. It's definitely up
there with the best of Infocom's games, as far as story depth. And there
are plenty of obsessed people who spend a lot of time following this
stuff.
Adams: And if you want to try a graphic adventure game there's a new
one out that was very big in Europe and it's finally been published in
the United States and that's Longest Journey. It can get tedious in the
conversations. It's also PG-13 or R rated at points, but it is an
excellent example of what somebody can do with a graphic adventure game.
Audience Member: Is Inform a designers' manual, or what is Inform? Is
it a
Jerz: Inform is a computer programming language. It looks a little
bit like C. It's object oriented and it's a free language that some guy
created because he wanted to make interactive fiction games and he just
gave it for free over the Internet. Look up Graham Nelson and Inform in
any search engine, you'll find it. Okay? Alright. Take my class. Writing
electronic texts, English 309. Audience Member: Is it fun?
Jerz: Yep, yep, three of these guys, their projects in the class is
writing interactive fiction using Inform... Also, like I said, there is
an obsessive group of Internet fanatics. Matt posted a programming
problem. He wanted to code a case of cigarettes and people just sent him
codes - here try this, try that.
Adams: Are you using Usenet when you're doing
Jerz: Yes, it's the Usenet discussion group rec.arts.int-fiction.
Audience Member: I have a question. I've heard a lot of terms and a
lot of people talking that are very much role-playing like, with paper
and pencil type of role playing. How much, if any, of an influence would
you say that has had? I mean you mentioned dungeon crawl, you mentioned
Tomb of Horrors which is actually a D&D
Jerz: Will Crowther the creator of the original Colossal Cave
Adventure, was a Dungeons and Dragons fan. In his role playing in
Dungeons and Dragons his character was ³Willie the Thief² and in the
Colossal Cave Adventure, in the maze you meet a thief. So, definitely,
absolutely, also J.R.R. Tolkien is another strong influence.
Audience Member: What's your take on the bleed-over between EverQuest
and selling things on Ebay? Do you think that's going to get more and
more prevalent?
Adams: That's a good question. I went out to Ebay and did a search on
EverQuest. Try it yourself sometime. I found somebody selling ³in game
money² for real world money. In other words you want to buy 2000
platinum it'll cost you 100 dollars. You want to buy a full character
that's already at level fifty, cost you 1500 dollars. There's a lot of
Audience Member: If you have nothing better to spend your money on.
Adams: And you who's paying it? Guys similar to me. Older guys, they
get hooked into the game. They have a successful career.
Jerz: And have lives, yeah.
Adams: And have lives, and want to play the game at a higher level
and don't want to work their way
Audience Member: just don't want to waste the time building up the
points
Adams: To me it's not a waste. To me the fun is the build up. I don't
want to be that higher level character unless I got there on my own.
But, other people play differently. They just enjoy playing the higher
level character.
Audience Member: Do you think as games become more sophisticated,
that's going to happen more and more?
Adams: Sure, you'll pay someone to play the game for you. Get it to
the point where it is that you want to play it at.
Jerz: Start a business idea, guys?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coda
Adams continued speaking afterwards at a small reception sponsored by
the Department of English, where he offered career advice and gave away
free copies of his most recent text game, "Return to Pirate's Island
2.". Later, he took several starving students out to dinner. He got
more and more generous as the day wore on. I hope he had as much fun on
his visit as we did. My students already want him to come back. --DGJ
(Complete text and audio of the entire panel are available from
http://www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/if/adams/ and
http://www.xyzzynews.com/)
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