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

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <01BCC827.53E64190.caliban at darklock.com>, on 09/23/97 
   at 10:52 AM, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> said:

>...For example, you  might have a situation where you're in
>a room with two doors (comments in  parentheses are not part of the
>command line):

>>look around the room (bah, simple strip of irrelevance, easy)
>You are in a room with a big wooden door on either side. There is a
>large  sword painted on the wall.
>>get the sword (simple sentence, but correct English; just strip article)
>The sword is painted on the wall, and cannot be picked up. >open the
>wooden door (confusion: more than one match)
>There are two wooden doors here. Which would you like to open? >the
>left one (Smooth... simple to remember, easy to use) You open the
>wooden door on the left.
>>look through ('...the door'. Nice, easy completion.)
>You see a magical sword lying on the floor in the other room. >get
>the sword (since the sword on the wall is not gettable, it looks 
>nearby before answering)
>You go into the room on the left, and pick up the magical sword. This
>room is empty. An open wooden door leads into another room. >open the
>other door (here, the parser begins to screw up... what other  door?)
>There is only one door to open.
>>open it (simplistic indirection: 'it' == 'the other door')
>There is only one door to open.
>>look through (hey, this works)
>You see a room with a big wooden door opposite you.
>>open it ('it' == 'the door')
>The door is already open.
>>open big wooden door (both doors are big wooden doors)
>The door is already open
>>#$!%@
>I beg your pardon?

Most of this is actually tracking of inferred or implict pronouns.  I
question if much of it can't be handled (as I've seen done somewhere)
by having the client keep and display a list of possible pronoun
compleations as part of the prompt.

Side comment: Please indent quosted MUD sessions.  This helps with
mail readers attempting to reformat the quote for quoted replies, and
also helps distinguish the MUD sessions from other autho's text.  

Consider:

  [Bubba:}
  > [Boffo:]
  >> [UggUgg:]
  
  > I had this great idea for doing XXX in my MUD.  It looks like:
  >  
  >> l
  >You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  >There is an Orc here.
  >> kill orc
  >...etc
  >
  >> That's a great idea, but if you yada yada...

Its not very clear whether the "l" and "kill orc" is from UggUgg or a
quote from a MUD.  Once the quote depth grows a bit this can get to be
a real problem, especially when MUD session lines start wrapping. 
Compare:

  [Bubba:}
  > [Boffo:]
  >> [UggUgg:]
  
  > I had this great idea for doing XXX:
  >  
  >  > l
  >  You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  >  There is an Orc here.
  >  > kill orc
  >  ...etc
  >
  >> That's a great idea, but if you yada yada...

We often quote from example MUD sessions, the above being a classic
case in point.  

--
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...