[MUD-Dev] Text Parsing

[Kylotan]

Ben Greear wrote:
> For instance, which of these would you chose to type:
> get the sword from the second bag
> get sword 2.bag
> ge sw 2.bag

Personally, I have seen all 3 forms used. Generally, the first is used by
newbies, the 2nd by more experienced players and the 3rd by those who are
more experienced still, and are confident that 'ge' will equate to 'get',
etc.

> Being a unix hack, I'm prone to the shortest, un-fluffiest version
> I can get, but I do see how that might annoy the hell out of newbies.

As others have said, I don't think the 2 approaches are mutually
exclusive.

> I haven't heard much one way or another about my parser, but there are
> a lot of newbies who log on for 2 minutes and log off w/out saying
> a word...maybe I should be counting those silent votes!!

As someone who has spent -many- hours snooping newbies to see why they
don't seem to be making progress, I have seen that there is a large
tendency for them to be typing in well-formed sentences, and getting
unhelpful responses from the parser ("You see no 'the' here."). Just a
simple routine to strip redundant words such as 'the', 'a', 'some'
from -appropriate- commands would make life a lot easier for those totally
new to muds.

I totally agree with the assertion that players like to be able to enter
short, precise, unambiguous commands. But, this normally comes later on in
the game, when the player knows exactly what they are trying to achieve
(and often in as short a time as possible, or with as little loss of
life). In my experience, it is apparent to me that many players that are
new to muds would appreciate not having to learn a new set of grammar
rules just to start playing.

> Hrm, think I'll snoop the first 20 commands or so a newbie
enters...might
> prove informative...

I think you'd be surprised at what they are typing :)

Kylotan.



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