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vedic · 09-28-2003, 06:10 PM

But you're effectively saying that presentation has no impact on content, and that is completely false. Take a look at the hardback edition of "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende. One half of the book is published in red text, the other is in green text, which corresponds with the transition from the real world to Fantastica. It makes a significant impact on the reader of the story and adds to the overall enjoyment of the book. True, the book can be, and has been published without the colors - I didn't say that you couldn't have an effective book without it - just that it DOES make a difference. Cover picture. Fonts used. Images or no. All those things are presentation, and they make a difference.

I would hope that your game would be better than a mass-produced paperback novel. Even mass-produced paperback novels know that it's all about the cover and thickness of the book - presentation again.

In text games, as in novels, presentation makes a huge difference, and keeping tight control over presentation - as tight as you can without controlling the client 100% - is a good way to do it. Having good content is nice, and that makes up the meat of a text-based game, but presentation provides the flavoring.

I mean, really - if you apply your argument to picking the characters you use to generate virtual maps, isn't there a reason water is blue and is made using tildes (as an example, I haven't seen your game), and grass is green? The same should go for warnings (red, that is an international standard, by the way - there's no reason it should be changed).

If you truly feel that the colors don't matter, try changing the colors around on your game. Put your room descriptions in screaming red, your character descriptions in bright yellow, and change the colors of your terrain to random - green water, red trees, and white plains. I think you will find that suddenly quite a bit has changed in the "look and feel" of the game, and your players are complaining. Do they really need control over that, as a standard? I think it's up to the individual server authors.

Again, what I object to is your comment that it should be a de facto standard to give users configurable colors and prompt. I'm not saying you are wrong to allow it, just that you are wrong to declare that it should be that way on every text-based game.

09-28-2003, 06:10 PM	#22
vedic Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 39	But you're effectively saying that presentation has no impact on content, and that is completely false. Take a look at the hardback edition of "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende. One half of the book is published in red text, the other is in green text, which corresponds with the transition from the real world to Fantastica. It makes a significant impact on the reader of the story and adds to the overall enjoyment of the book. True, the book can be, and has been published without the colors - I didn't say that you couldn't have an effective book without it - just that it DOES make a difference. Cover picture. Fonts used. Images or no. All those things are presentation, and they make a difference. I would hope that your game would be better than a mass-produced paperback novel. Even mass-produced paperback novels know that it's all about the cover and thickness of the book - presentation again. In text games, as in novels, presentation makes a huge difference, and keeping tight control over presentation - as tight as you can without controlling the client 100% - is a good way to do it. Having good content is nice, and that makes up the meat of a text-based game, but presentation provides the flavoring. I mean, really - if you apply your argument to picking the characters you use to generate virtual maps, isn't there a reason water is blue and is made using tildes (as an example, I haven't seen your game), and grass is green? The same should go for warnings (red, that is an international standard, by the way - there's no reason it should be changed). If you truly feel that the colors don't matter, try changing the colors around on your game. Put your room descriptions in screaming red, your character descriptions in bright yellow, and change the colors of your terrain to random - green water, red trees, and white plains. I think you will find that suddenly quite a bit has changed in the "look and feel" of the game, and your players are complaining. Do they really need control over that, as a standard? I think it's up to the individual server authors. Again, what I object to is your comment that it should be a de facto standard to give users configurable colors and prompt. I'm not saying you are wrong to allow it, just that you are wrong to declare that it should be that way on every text-based game.