intfiction.org

Hey Janka -- here's a thought. If you think that --- why are you participating in the discussion?! Color me confused. Do you normally participate in things you find to be going nowhere? (That might explain the interest in text adventures, perhaps.)

In any event, I do notice text adventure folks get the most defensive when you question why people are interested in the medium. You don't see this in other game forums. Curious. But it would probably .... go nowhere .... to discuss it.

Everyone CAN be a novelist, as long as they have basic literacy and access to writing utensils. Everyone can be a filmmaker if they have access to a camera. It doesn't mean that what they produce will be any good, but given the tools and the time, anyone can make something. Text adventures are no different.



I think a better question is why you continue to draw it out. We get it, you don't like text adventures. That's fine. You claim that you want to know why other people do like them, but you argue with every reason that anyone gives you. It's obvious you don't want to be convinced. I don't know why you're devoting so much energy to something you have such disdain for.

These threads sound interesting. Can you link to some of them?

This comment from maga nicely expresses what I think IF's potential is. Especially point 2:



Now, I don't play mainstream games, so I can't speak to maga's statements about them first-hand. But the ones that aren't time management/hidden object games* do seem mostly to be about shooting stuff when they aren't about whacking stuff with swords or casting spells on stuff. Indie games can be nice but they still seem to basically fall be about those, or to be puzzles of some sort (sometimes puzzles about how to effectively whack stuff with swords -- I like those), or to be platformers which may or may not deliver some deeper meaning through some kind of pretty abstract symbolism; which is really the only option, because a story that was actually about someone running around and jumping on stuff would be pretty silly.

Obviously there's crap IF, and IF that doesn't respect its audience, and genre IF, but IF at least has the potential (sometimes realized) to be about things that don't get addressed in most games.

*Which probably don't count as games gamers play; they're marketed toward middle-aged women, so even thinking about them probably gives you girl cooties. There's like one game writer I've read who takes time management games seriously; her descriptions don't make them sound appealing to me, but at least they aren't about shooting stuff.

Did I say this? I think I did. I believe I called it "intelligent trolling". Not that I haven't done the very same, without so much the intelligent part.



Every single genre, every popular game, has some of this. I'm not sure from whence the comment is born regarding IF being elitist in defending its medium. I can't pick up a copy of Game Informer without seeing pages of reviews burying games of ever flavor that are horrible and an equal number of comments glorifying those things which make it great regardless. For an extreme and common example, jump on the World of Warcraft forums. You can't say "Hi, my name is Jack." without someone screaming at you that Jack is a rogue's name and rogues are OP in PvP and Blizzard has done crap since patch 32.3.221 when they released the "Tinkerdust: Another Pointless Expansion Where We Didn't Change Anything That Won't Piss Everyone Off" expansion.

Game doesn't have multiplayer? Crucified...



I think this was an unnecessary jab.

This conversation is going nowhere. It never got anywhere. Asking someone who loves IF why they write IF and why it's a better medium is like asking a chef why s/he cooks Italian food over French. If s/he was a really great chef, s/he would be able to cook both, right? There are some chefs out there (very few) who can do both, who can do amazing things in either style. But a lot of them don't, because they prefer not to or because they have a better feel for one style over another. Or because their customers prefer one style over another.

It doesn't really matter because they're cooking what they love for the people who love it, not for the people who don't.

I enjoy foie gras. I don't give a damn if you do or not. When I cook, I prefer French, Southern American or Indian influences. Not because I can't cook something else. I'm handy with Italian, German, Mexican, Spanish and Asian. I just happen to PREFER French, Southern American and Indian, because that's what I personally like. If you don't... Don't eat it. I don't need to convert you. I don't care if you like it. I don't care if you don't understand why I like it. I don't care you if you don't understand or agree that I'm a liberal. I don't care if you don't understand or agree that I believe in Jesus. (Though my writing my indicate otherwise.) I don't care if you don't understand or agree that I prefer the color red.

I got through English classes in school writing, because my teachers recognized that I knew the grammar and was bored to the point that I was going to fail the classes. So I wrote stories. A lot of them. That's what I was graded on. That grasp has since faded under the influences of lethargy and alcohol. But I know that if I really wanted to write a novel, I could. Hell, if Terry Pratchett can get published, any of my pre-teen children can. But if I'm going to write, I prefer the IF medium. I believe it gives a stronger sense of immersion.

People who make fancy graphical games do so because they love fancy graphical games. The only people who give a damn about the story are the people paid to write the story, and in a lot of cases even their hands are tied by what can be graphically achieved. Most game companies care about the bottom dollar, with the exception of a few gems. If they didn't, there would never be a video game based on a movie. They know that their game is going to be a flash in the pan and forgotten, in many cases. They will give the lip service because they have to. "We love the classic love story between our steroid fueled opossum and the coffee mug. We think it's a wonderful combination of writing and graphical advancement."

BS. It's flashy. Things blow up. People eat it up.

Point being, people do what they love for reasons that are personal to them. Not for reasons that they have to explain to the rest of the world. And no medium, craft, theology, political bent or love for French/Southern American/Indian cuisine is immune.

I also understand and acknowledge the irony of the fact that I wrote this long post about something I don't care about.

Huh? That seems somewhat elitist--"It can't be that great because anyone can do it."

It's also a strange assertion to make. The bar to do any of those things is lower right now than it has ever been in history. Using cheap (or even free) tools, one can write (and publish/print) a novel, make (publish/distribute) a movie, and program (publish/distribute) a graphical game. And those same people can write (publish/distribute) a text adventure.

Some of these endeavors tend to require a great deal of investment if you want to have a big, commercially successful product, but even there you have exceptions. Many people prefer independent films, self-published niche market novels, and indie games.

Interesting to me, there are no massive commercial production tools required to write really top notch IF; you can use the same free tools that the terrible writers are using. The entry cost is very low, but that doesn't mean that the resulting work has little value.

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I meant in the sense that it's possible for anyone to write IF. It's not possible for anyone to write a FPS or an MMO, at least not on their own and not without having considerably financial backing. Not everyone can be a film director on their own - they need actors and set designers and story writers and people to promote the film and cinemas willing to show it. Not everyone can be a novellist - sure, anyone can write one but they still need publishers to get them into print* and bookshops to stock them. But yes, anyone can write IF. It might not be good IF, but the barriers holding you back in other fields don't apply as strongly in the IF world.


Although if eBook readers take off in the way I hope they do, even that might be something that Joe Ordinary can do.

I also suspect that the vast majority of IF authors also write non-IF fiction or do non-IF programming/game design, and that a large portion do both. I do both, for instance (and illustration, to boot).

I think vanishingly few people have written IF without skills in any related field.

For an MMO that might be true, but in the case of an FPS, that's no longer the case now that engines such as Unity are available.

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I've never heard of Unity and don't play FPS, but I'm kind of doubtful that something like, say, Call of Duty 4 could be written by a single person. The best IF game in the world could be written by a person on their own; the best FPS couldn't.