‹dread› IMD Forum for 9/23/09: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, University of California, Santa Cruz
‹dread› http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11757
‹Little› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons
‹bo1v› 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
‹Sam› Love that game. Bioware rules.
‹Little› One of the best games ever.
‹dread› Noah et al's Grand Text Auto blog: http://grandtextauto.org/
‹ryan› I remember that scene... but I think when I did it everyone died
‹Little› if you did it and chose to follow the Dark Side you probably helped kill everybody
‹david m.› maybe he has short term memory problems
‹Little› I think I had this problem too
‹ryan› bioware's portfolio:
‹ryan› http://www.bioware.com/games/
‹david m.› is that a metal book?
‹Mannetta› metal-ish
‹Little› you mean "metallic"?
‹david m.› no, made of metal
‹Little› well
‹Little› "metal-ish" isn't really a word
‹Little› maybe it is. looks weird to me, too
‹Mannetta› my sarcasm is lost on you, Little one.
‹bobo› isn't it made of paper?
‹david m.› a lesser book would be
‹david m.› there's no straightforward way for a designer to test the incontinuities of multiple intersecting narrative branches
‹Little› 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.
‹Little› maybe a little more playtesting on that could have helped
‹david m.› 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
‹david m.› its only looking back that the problem is revealed
‹Little› 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.
‹ironman28› http://www.nous.org.uk/oulipo.html
‹david m.› eliza?
‹ironman28› http://www.chayden.net/eliza/Eliza.html
‹david m.› i had a text to speech version of a therapist chatbot on an old dos computer
‹david m.› it was frustrating and hilarious
‹david m.› is this where the chinese box argument comes from?
‹craab› Do you feel strongly about discussing such things ?
‹Sam› Do you feel strongly about feeling strongly about things?
‹craab› Oh, I feel strongly about feeling strongly about things ?
‹david m.› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
‹Sam› Eliza's kind of creepy.
‹craab› 'm not sure I understand you fully.
‹Ed.› chinese box? is that the linguistic thingy?
‹david m.› its an AI question, if something apears to be intelligent, is it really?
‹Ed.› yup... i remember that
‹david m.› i confused box with room
‹Ed.› is the argument whether a computer really know the language or not... something like that...
‹ironman28› Mr. Mind: an inversion of the Turing test: http://www.mrmind.com/mrmind3
‹ndef› Eliza breaks down when the player becomes sophisticated... but what about suspension of disbelief?
‹ndef› Can people deliberately act in an unsophisticated manner, and does it prevent the experience from breaking down?
‹Ed.› 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
‹Sam› I'm not sure if people can force themselves to take Eliza seriously when her simple nature is revealed
‹Sam› it's human nature to want to test the boundaries of a system.
‹david m.› i think the most germaine thing to designers is, it shouldn't matter
‹david m.› if the player is fooled i'm happy
‹craab› @Sam - I'm not sure of that.
‹david m.› to advocates of civil liberties for artificial beings, there might be some application
‹Ed.› yea cog sci :)
‹craab› Some humans try to test boundaries, others not.
‹Little› 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
‹ndef› @craab Or in some cases, and not others.
‹Sam› 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.
‹ironman28› that's also what the computer does with you!
‹ndef› Depends on the presentation of the intelligence. Depends on the context.
‹ndef› Depends on what I hope to get out of the experience.
‹david m.› we can't rely on the altruism of players
‹Little› 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.
‹david m.› even a well meaning player will break a faulty system
‹Little› I agree with David.
‹Little› hey there's a censor in this room. -.-
‹ndef› When we design an experience, do we have to design it for everyone?
‹david m.› tout le monde?
‹Mannetta› narrative as string theory?
‹ndef› Can we design it for people who are willing to play along?
‹david m.› digital games generally don't work well with player adjudication
‹Sam› Well, players of D&D have to play along in order for it to work
‹Sam› but if the DM sounded like Eliza, they probably wouldn't want to play for very long
‹ndef› Sure. I'm not arguing that Eliza, specifically, works.
‹ndef› I'm arguing that the Eliza effect may have value.
‹david m.› thats a fair argument
‹david m.› its not good enough for researchers, but for games maybe
‹bo1v› 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, “Eliza” is a great name for a fraudulent online dating profile –
‹david m.› but how do you alter the game state by talking to a chatbot
‹david m.› without having keywords
‹bo1v› yes, I have a fraudulent online girlfriend… and yes she is basically an online game.
‹bo1v› I haven’t sent her any money – yet…
‹bo1v› Ah, Eliza… she cut’s and pastes all the right thing’s l(by hand of course) iike “Really?”, “Oh, cool” , “tell me about what you do for a living” (again), “a little girl I’m taking care of is sick”, “I need money for a plane ticket”, and the rest of the story is generated by me. I think this should be the future of online dating.
‹Little› I think you've just destroyed the good parts about meeting anyone through the internet.
‹ironman28› I don't see any difference between that and real dating
‹ndef› "The rest of the story is generated by me." That's the key phrase.
‹bo1v› It's nice to meet you.
‹Sam› "You (insert subject name here) must be the pride of (insert subject hometown here).
‹ndef› Can't we work with that?
‹Little› and also, somewhere in there I think you hit on why guys on the internet thing there are no females using it as well
‹david m.› definitely maybe
‹bo1v› maybe the females are males - but they only like to date one person online at a time .... so they are very genuine
‹Little› what??
‹Little› they are genuine because they are unavailable?
‹bo1v› yes
‹Little› that really seems like bizarre circular logic. I don't get it at all.
‹Mannetta› http://www.cosplayamerica.com/lebowitz/universe.html
‹bo1v› love
‹Mannetta› http://www.terminaltime.com/
‹Little› 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.
‹Little› so isn't it expected that we haven't found a particularly "perfect" model yet?
‹david m.› could you make the idealogue a religious materialist?
‹ironman28› Terminal Time was all about playing with the algorithms that defined each ideological position
‹ironman28› they encouraged you to adopt multiple and contradictory subject positions
‹ndef› @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?
‹dread› 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.
‹dread› http://www.noahwf.com/agent/index.html
‹Little› 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.
‹Little› 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
‹ironman28› http://eis.soe.ucsc.edu/
‹Little› http://www.amazon.com/Expressive-Processing-Fictions-Computer-Software/dp/0262013436
‹david m.› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dmitri_Project
‹david m.› sounds like an uncanny valley issue
‹Sam› I was just about to say that lol
‹dread› http://kotaku.com/5275204/testing-molyneuxs-milo-a-virtual-boy-with-yes-a-dog
‹ndef› Scott McCloud talks about iconic imagery as something that the reader projects themselves into.
‹ndef› Seems related to that.
‹david m.› does anyone have a link to this thing he's talking about?
‹david m.› i can't figure out how to spell it
‹Little› what he was talking about on how to -at this moment - improve an RPG like KOTOR? or something else?
‹Little› whoever archives the backchannel should get links to some of the things he was talking about before they archive it and add it
‹dread› Noah's immersive text: http://www.noahwf.com/screen/index.html
‹dread› play shade
‹Mannetta› http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_%28interactive_fiction%29
‹KylaG› This one? http://www.kongregate.com/games/cgjordan/shades
‹KylaG› What is "Shade"?
‹Mannetta› http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html#shade
‹KylaG› Thank you.
‹Mannetta› de nada
‹david m.› http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/
‹craab› http://www.scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/index.html