âıdreadâş IMD Forum for 9/23/09: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, University of California, Santa Cruz
âıdreadâş http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11757
âıLittleâş http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons
âıbo1vâş http://books.google.com/books?id=M9dshxV-T0cC&dq=little+wars&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=3amJOMNcZr&sig=AsrMk20hWmMPQFmLCNlM_B_HGFk&hl=en&ei=U8m6Ssu1EpH8sgOuwYHlCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false
âıSamâş Love that game. Bioware rules.
âıLittleâş One of the best games ever.
âıdreadâş Noah et al's Grand Text Auto blog: http://grandtextauto.org/
âıryanâş I remember that scene... but I think when I did it everyone died
âıLittleâş if you did it and chose to follow the Dark Side you probably helped kill everybody
âıdavid m.âş maybe he has short term memory problems
âıLittleâş I think I had this problem too
âıryanâş bioware's portfolio:
âıryanâş http://www.bioware.com/games/
âıdavid m.âş is that a metal book?
âıMannettaâş metal-ish
âıLittleâş you mean "metallic"?
âıdavid m.âş no, made of metal
âıLittleâş well
âıLittleâş "metal-ish" isn't really a word
âıLittleâş maybe it is. looks weird to me, too
âıMannettaâş my sarcasm is lost on you, Little one.
âıboboâş isn't it made of paper?
âıdavid m.âş a lesser book would be
âıdavid m.âş there's no straightforward way for a designer to test the incontinuities of multiple intersecting narrative branches
âıLittleâş that's a big "break" in the story. I played that game a few times through and had to remember not to screw it up the same way the second time around.
âıLittleâş maybe a little more playtesting on that could have helped
âıdavid m.âş right but there's no assurance. casus being dead or not as something that breaks the other plot branches is something that does not neccessarily stick out in design
âıdavid m.âş its only looking back that the problem is revealed
âıLittleâş yeah I agree it's difficult and probably still impossible to fix everything... but that was a large break and it was disappointing when I did it the first time through. I had a few big problems the first itme through.
âıironman28âş http://www.nous.org.uk/oulipo.html
âıdavid m.âş eliza?
âıironman28âş http://www.chayden.net/eliza/Eliza.html
âıdavid m.âş i had a text to speech version of a therapist chatbot on an old dos computer
âıdavid m.âş it was frustrating and hilarious
âıdavid m.âş is this where the chinese box argument comes from?
âıcraabâş Do you feel strongly about discussing such things ?
âıSamâş Do you feel strongly about feeling strongly about things?
âıcraabâş Oh, I feel strongly about feeling strongly about things ?
âıdavid m.âş http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
âıSamâş Eliza's kind of creepy.
âıcraabâş 'm not sure I understand you fully.
âıEd.âş chinese box? is that the linguistic thingy?
âıdavid m.âş its an AI question, if something apears to be intelligent, is it really?
âıEd.âş yup... i remember that
âıdavid m.âş i confused box with room
âıEd.âş is the argument whether a computer really know the language or not... something like that...
âıironman28âş Mr. Mind: an inversion of the Turing test: http://www.mrmind.com/mrmind3
âındefâş Eliza breaks down when the player becomes sophisticated... but what about suspension of disbelief?
âındefâş Can people deliberately act in an unsophisticated manner, and does it prevent the experience from breaking down?
âıEd.âş i think there is a really strong argument saying that eventhough the computer might be able to produce the syntax, it does not KNOW the language in the chiniese box scenero
âıSamâş I'm not sure if people can force themselves to take Eliza seriously when her simple nature is revealed
âıSamâş it's human nature to want to test the boundaries of a system.
âıdavid m.âş i think the most germaine thing to designers is, it shouldn't matter
âıdavid m.âş if the player is fooled i'm happy
âıcraabâş @Sam - I'm not sure of that.
âıdavid m.âş to advocates of civil liberties for artificial beings, there might be some application
âıEd.âş yea cog sci :)
âıcraabâş Some humans try to test boundaries, others not.
âıLittleâş I don't know if humans bother testing all systems. I do think we probably test boundaries to systems we don't like, but I'm not sure it's human nature
âındefâş @craab Or in some cases, and not others.
âıSamâş In conversation with a human-type intelligence, wouldn't we try to see if we can fool it? I know that's my first reaction.
âıironman28âş that's also what the computer does with you!
âındefâş Depends on the presentation of the intelligence. Depends on the context.
âındefâş Depends on what I hope to get out of the experience.
âıdavid m.âş we can't rely on the altruism of players
âıLittleâş usually anything resembling "human" even in a loose way... I generally want to see if it can be blown up, shot at, turned into a zombie, or if it can have *** on screen for me. so... I dont' try to break the game right from the start.
âıdavid m.âş even a well meaning player will break a faulty system
âıLittleâş I agree with David.
âıLittleâş hey there's a censor in this room. -.-
âındefâş When we design an experience, do we have to design it for everyone?
âıdavid m.âş tout le monde?
âıMannettaâş narrative as string theory?
âındefâş Can we design it for people who are willing to play along?
âıdavid m.âş digital games generally don't work well with player adjudication
âıSamâş Well, players of D&D have to play along in order for it to work
âıSamâş but if the DM sounded like Eliza, they probably wouldn't want to play for very long
âındefâş Sure. I'm not arguing that Eliza, specifically, works.
âındefâş I'm arguing that the Eliza effect may have value.
âıdavid m.âş thats a fair argument
âıdavid m.âş its not good enough for researchers, but for games maybe
âıbo1vâş I like the idea of Eliza systems that reveal the nature of their users. Try online dating sites for example and you will find Eliza Style systems in action. In fact, âElizaâ is a great name for a fraudulent online dating profile â
âıdavid m.âş but how do you alter the game state by talking to a chatbot
âıdavid m.âş without having keywords
âıbo1vâş yes, I have a fraudulent online girlfriendâĤ and yes she is basically an online game.
âıbo1vâş I havenât sent her any money â yetâĤ
âıbo1vâş Ah, ElizaâĤ she cutâs and pastes all the right thingâs l(by hand of course) iike âReally?â, âOh, coolâ , âtell me about what you do for a livingâ (again), âa little girl Iâm taking care of is sickâ, âI need money for a plane ticketâ, and the rest of the story is generated by me. I think this should be the future of online dating.
âıLittleâş I think you've just destroyed the good parts about meeting anyone through the internet.
âıironman28âş I don't see any difference between that and real dating
âındefâş "The rest of the story is generated by me." That's the key phrase.
âıbo1vâş It's nice to meet you.
âıSamâş "You (insert subject name here) must be the pride of (insert subject hometown here).
âındefâş Can't we work with that?
âıLittleâş and also, somewhere in there I think you hit on why guys on the internet thing there are no females using it as well
âıdavid m.âş definitely maybe
âıbo1vâş maybe the females are males - but they only like to date one person online at a time .... so they are very genuine
âıLittleâş what??
âıLittleâş they are genuine because they are unavailable?
âıbo1vâş yes
âıLittleâş that really seems like bizarre circular logic. I don't get it at all.
âıMannettaâş http://www.cosplayamerica.com/lebowitz/universe.html
âıbo1vâş love
âıMannettaâş http://www.terminaltime.com/
âıLittleâş it seems like when you give up control over the narrative - like in a neverending universe situation - which maybe relates to having a bunch of authors write a long series - seems like you lose control over the constraints on story... and leave a lot of room for things to get weird.
âıLittleâş so isn't it expected that we haven't found a particularly "perfect" model yet?
âıdavid m.âş could you make the idealogue a religious materialist?
âıironman28âş Terminal Time was all about playing with the algorithms that defined each ideological position
âıironman28âş they encouraged you to adopt multiple and contradictory subject positions
âındefâş @Little Is it possible to define the constraints on the story ahead of time, in such a way that they will be observed even when you don't have direct narrative control?
âıdreadâş Noah is the author of the lead writer/designer of The Impermanence Agent, which tells a story, monitors the user' s web browsing, and uses browsed materials to customize its story out of existence.
âıdreadâş http://www.noahwf.com/agent/index.html
âıLittleâş I'm saying that since we haven't figured out how to do that just in writing or telling a story... it makes sense that we haven't figured out ways to make computers do it for us.
âıLittleâş although in the Star Wars universe, for example, there are a few things that stay the same. But any writer can still decide who lives, who dies, and whatever ridiculous plot twist they please goes where in the universe
âıironman28âş http://eis.soe.ucsc.edu/
âıLittleâş http://www.amazon.com/Expressive-Processing-Fictions-Computer-Software/dp/0262013436
âıdavid m.âş http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dmitri_Project
âıdavid m.âş sounds like an uncanny valley issue
âıSamâş I was just about to say that lol
âıdreadâş http://kotaku.com/5275204/testing-molyneuxs-milo-a-virtual-boy-with-yes-a-dog
âındefâş Scott McCloud talks about iconic imagery as something that the reader projects themselves into.
âındefâş Seems related to that.
âıdavid m.âş does anyone have a link to this thing he's talking about?
âıdavid m.âş i can't figure out how to spell it
âıLittleâş what he was talking about on how to -at this moment - improve an RPG like KOTOR? or something else?
âıLittleâş whoever archives the backchannel should get links to some of the things he was talking about before they archive it and add it
âıdreadâş Noah's immersive text: http://www.noahwf.com/screen/index.html
âıdreadâş play shade
âıMannettaâş http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_%28interactive_fiction%29
âıKylaGâş This one? http://www.kongregate.com/games/cgjordan/shades
âıKylaGâş What is "Shade"?
âıMannettaâş http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html#shade
âıKylaGâş Thank you.
âıMannettaâş de nada
âıdavid m.âş http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/
âıcraabâş http://www.scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/index.html
