Most text games, be them IF or MUD, take place in second person, where everything you do returns a "You... do this" responce. I've read that some people simply view their character as, just that, their character. They are not they character, the character is not them. If this is the case, "You do this" doesn't really fit, now does it?
So, my question. Currently FoomerMUD uses the popular second person mode. But, should I perhaps drift away from this and change it to third person?
This is what you'd see now:
You say, " Hello. "
Kuldag looks at Rujuk.
Kuldag says, " What do you want, boy?"
You say, " Uh... "
Kuldag glares at you threateningly.
You say, " Forget I said anything. "
You whistle.
You leave north.
That, however, could be changed into a more impersonal viewpoint. This could enhance roleplay, or it could cause people to behave more recklessly since it isn't them who gets the results of it. Or it could have no change at all, and just cause more players to leave because it's different.
Rujuk says, " Hello. "
Kuldag looks at Rujuk.
Kuldag says, " What do you want, boy?"
Rujuk says, " Uh... "
Kuldag glares at Rujuk threateningly.
Rujuk says, " Forget I said anything. "
Rujuk whistles.
Rujuk leaves north.
Any thoughts on this?
ID:154268
 Feb 22 2002, 6:29 pm
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LordJR wrote:
Hmm I see your point, but the 2nd person just seems to flow better. It may just be thats what I'm use to. But upon 1st read, I liked the old way better. If you want 3rd person just do isometric graphics -> 2 tiles mobs. Over a 3d rendered BMP. Like Balder's Gate. Well, it's a text-MUD. =) I myself prefer the second-person* viewpoint, simply because it makes more sense. If you really want to go for the full-fledged objective viewpoint, you might want to try something I did: I actually made my parser capable of conjugating verbs, so emotes will actually display in the proper format. Most games will simply say Spuzzum does this to Billy, even to the person doing the action. In my game, it will actually conjugate the verb appropriately (technically, it "de-conjugates" the verb) and replace proper nouns to look like You do this to Billy, or from Billy's perspective, Spuzzum does this to you. Naturally there are some conjugation problems, in addition to problems with adverbs or other junk before the actual predicate, but for the most part the verbs are easy enough to modify. * "Second-person" doesn't technically exist, at least not in literary terms. Whenever you're writing anything formal, never ever use the word "you", no matter what, except as part of a quote. If you want me to explain further, I could easily make a post on the different POVs that people can have. There are only about five. | |
Spuz..
You sound like someone who may have an interest in helping me on my Byond - Cybot project. Its a graphical AI that you can interact with and well as dynamic learning abilities. I just suck when it comes to parsing anything complex. For now everything is just hardcoded so no real AI involved, but I'd like to develope the ultimate parser. Cybot is an open project for those who show intersting in higher forms of AI. I hope to someday get to the level where you can chat with my bot and he will learn from you thru normal english chat, later he could be multi-lingual as well. If he gets goods enough.. hmmmm just had a money making brainstorm... :) LJR | |
So, my question. Currently FoomerMUD uses the popular second person mode. But, should I perhaps drift away from this and change it to third person? Strike out in a new direction! Use first person. I say, " Hello. " Kuldag looks at me. Kuldag says, " What do you want, boy?" I say, " Uh... " Kuldag glares at me threateningly. I say, " Forget I said anything. " I whistle. I leave north. Wow... that's kind of annoying, isn't it? Never mind. | |
Wow... that's kind of annoying, isn't it? Never mind. No, wait; you could take it even further with a Narrative past-tense viewpoint! I said, " Hello. " Kuldag looked at me. Kuldag said, " What do you want, boy?" I said, " Uh... " Kulday glared at me threateningly. I said, " Forget I said anything. " I whistled. I left north. Naturally, that'd be really darned weird when you're actually playing, but it would look so neat in logs. =) | |
Naturally, that'd be really darned weird when you're actually playing, but it would look so neat in logs. =) Saaayyyy... you might have something there! | |
Spuzzum wrote:
Naturally, that'd be really darned weird when you're actually playing, but it would look so neat in logs. =) Use second person in the game and past tense first person in the logs! ;) | |
Hehe, Spuzz... that's just what I thought of when I read Guy's post. For that matter, you could do third person in the past tense.
Z | |
One comment from me on this ^^;; *dodges the rotting vegitables flying at her* Heyyyyy @.@;;
annyways *L* ^_^ Basicaly I think that refering to your character by thier name, rather then 'you' can lead to problems with the player reading the flow of the game. Yea, it might not be that big a problem if you only have one character, in one game, but after playing a lot of 'you' games, I find that I automaticaly pay attention to lines starting with 'you' or with 'you' in it. In high spamrate areas it really helps me keep track of whats goin on. ^^ El | |
Spuzzum wrote:
LordJR wrote: This inspired me to do a demo on the subject. Expect to see it up and running in a bit :P Alathon | |
How about giving the player the choice of perspective? Sometimes I like to see both 'second'-person (true it technically does not exist, but useful in this discussion) and third person or even third person past tense, in rpgs.
Another thought is to provide 'second person' during the game, but in a review of the game log, it could be changed to past tense in whatever 'person' perspective you desired... more story-like... | |
LJR