[MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon A. Lambert [mailto:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 8:38 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)
> 
> 
> On 2 Jun 99,, Greg Miller wrote:
> > "Jon A. Lambert" wrote:
> > > >
> > > I'm 90% certain my users will prefer to drag the 
> word/object "sword" from
> > > their avatar's scabbard and drop it on their avatar's 
> hand.  Or if 
> > 
> > True, but then it's not a text environment anymore. Even if it's a
> > graphical layer that exists only from the client's perspective and
> > translating those actions into text commands that get sent 
> to the mud,
> > it's still a GUI enviroment for the player.
> 
> Raph:
> > Is it desirable, even in text environments, to have the command 
> > interface be words?
> 
> Then the question posed contains a paradox of sorts. :)

Well, I carefully said "words" as opposed to "text." Certainly it would
still be text input via the keyboard.

> Or does it?
> I assumed that "text environments" meant a server like Diku, Tiny, or 
> PennMush as as opposed to UOL, EverQuest, or Furcadia.  

Yes; although I'd note that EverQuest and also Furcadia to some extent very
much feel like text environments at times. In EQ in particular you play
without looking at the graphics window much of the time.

> This would mean that user's of GMud, ZMud or MushClient are 
> no longer in 
> text environments, but players of the old PC-DOS versions of 
> Asteroids 
> and Joust are in text environments.
> 
> At what point does your CUI become a GUI?
> And more pointedly, there seems to exist a small but vocal 
> group of text
> mud players, who have strong negative opinions on graphical 
> muds.  Yet a 
> sizable portion of them are using GUI's to mud.   

Let's split it up for the purposes of discussion:

- representation of the environment
- interface for commands (other than speech)
- interface for client functionality

A UO would be GUI, GUI, GUI; a Zmud would be text, text, GUI.

-Raph


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