[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <34271b24.4932023 at relay.mnsinc.com>, on 09/20/97 
   at 12:16 PM, caliban at darklock.com (Caliban Tiresias Darklock) said:

>On Fri, 19 Sep 1997 20:50:57 PST8PDT, clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>>>Hardcopy and local copies  are important. But as the game's designer,
>>>or as one of its primary  founding players, you won't understand
>>>it... it's easy, see, not that much  at all.
>>
>>No.  While I'll acknowledge that some players like this sort of thing
>>and find them useful (which set appears to closely map to certain game
>>types), many (more?) don't.  This suggests that the question is one of
>>target market rather than generic usefulness.

>Every new player needs to learn his way around the game. Therefore,
>documentation is necessary. It is trivial to implement that
>documentation in printable form and then zip it up on an FTP site,
>but next to no one does it. So it's generally possible to browse
>through it online, but nowhere else. Since the investment is minor
>and the benefit is (in at least my opinion) major, why is this a bone
>of contention?

I'm not contending the fact of the usefulness of documentation, just
the assertion of the magnitude of its value.  They are not the same.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...