Big Three? Misnomer, it should be Big Two...
Bruce Humphrey
Lots of time IFfers refer to 'the Big Three', Inform, Tads and Hugo.
But actually, that is a misnomer, because there are only two big ones:
Inform and TADS. Big should not only include the possibilities of the
system, it should also take into account the popularity of a system.
Hugo, although a powerful language, with some wonderful adventures,
seems to have a disquieting lack of production that can't allow it to
be kept being called part of the big three. There are really only two
big IF systems.
Looking at the IF Archive, I found:
Inform is clearly in the lead in production, with 22 adventures. It is
a classic language and one which most IFfers know. Surely that helps.
TADS (3) is the hot topic now on the group. It seems as if it should
be the tool of choice, powerful, sleek, but it only has 9 games so
far. But that is more than enough to keep it in the Big league, as the
possibilities of the system are so great. Probably there are only 9
games so far because most people are waiting for the IF Competition to
release their masterpieces. Even so, I don't think it will catch
Inform.
Hugo has only 1. A system that only produces 1 game shouldn't be in
the Big league, sorry, no matter how good it is. 1 game in 8 months
seems a sign of a dying system.
As fodder for thought, I'll mention that from the number of adventures
released in 2004 in the IF Archive (popularity), the Big Three would
be Inform, Tads and Adrift.
Bruce Humphrey
David Doty
news:ea4b7e97.0408...@posting.google.com:
> As fodder for thought, I'll mention that from the number of adventures
> released in 2004 in the IF Archive (popularity), the Big Three would
> be Inform, Tads and Adrift.
How many 2004 Adrift games did you find? I only saw statistics for the
other three.
Dave Doty
Valjean
"Bruce Humphrey" <bruc...@teleline.es> wrote in message
news:ea4b7e97.0408...@posting.google.com...
> Hello
>
> As fodder for thought, I'll mention that from the number of adventures
> released in 2004 in the IF Archive (popularity), the Big Three would
> be Inform, Tads and Adrift.
>
> Bruce Humphrey
With my Tongue wedged firmly in my cheek I would suggest that if
we use the number of adventures released, BASIC would have to be
in there somewhere as they were coming out at a rate of 1 a day a
short while ago.
Val
Eric Eve
>
> Lots of time IFfers refer to 'the Big Three', Inform, Tads and
Hugo.
> But actually, that is a misnomer, because there are only two big
ones:
> Inform and TADS. Big should not only include the possibilities of
the
> system, it should also take into account the popularity of a
system.
>
> Looking at the IF Archive, I found:
>
> Inform is clearly in the lead in production, with 22 adventures.
It is
> a classic language and one which most IFfers know. Surely that
helps.
Just as a matter of interest, what period are you counting over? I'm
sure there must be many more than 22 Inform adventures in the
IF-Archive!
> TADS (3) is the hot topic now on the group. It seems as if it
should
> be the tool of choice, powerful, sleek, but it only has 9 games so
> far. But that is more than enough to keep it in the Big league, as
the
> possibilities of the system are so great. Probably there are only
9
> games so far because most people are waiting for the IF
Competition to
> release their masterpieces. Even so, I don't think it will catch
> Inform.
Again, what are you counting here? That the IF-Archive contains only
a small number of TADS 3 games is hardly surprising given that TADS
3 is still in beta (and only acquired beta status a couple of months
ago). And where does TADS 2 come into your reckoning? If you'll
pardon the pun, I'm just a tad puzzled by your statistics!
Nevertheless, I'm daresay you're right that Inform will remain the
most popular authoring system for some time to come. This seems to
be indicated not only by the relative number of posts concerning
Inform programming queries on this list, but also, perhaps, by the
tendency for quite a few of them not even to mention Inform in their
subject line (as if the poster takes it for granted that everyone
will assume this is the system s/he's talking about). And, of
course, it's suggested simply by the volume of Inform games and
Inform users that already exist.
It will be interesting to see whether there's a significant shift
when TADS 3 is officially released, complete with author's manual,
or whether the kind of IF-authors who might be interested in TADS 3
are already having a go with the beta version and the existing
documentation. The interesting thing about the number of TADS 3
related posts on this group over the last few months is the
indication that there are a number of authors willing to give it a
go in its pre-official-release state. Are these mainly new IF
authors deciding they may as well start out with the latest system,
or people familiar with Inform or TADS 2 interesting in trying
something different (or a roughly equal mix of the two)?
What factors influence people's decision to try out a new system and
change to it (I mean, people who are already pretty comfortable with
another system)? There's obviously a considerable investment in time
and effort in mastering any IF system, so it's quite understandable
that once people have done so, they'd rather continue to work with
it than switch to something new, particularly if it works well
enough for them. My guess is that people who particularly enjoy the
programming aspect of composing IF might be more attracted to trying
out a different system than people who primarily enjoy the writing
aspect, but I could be wrong.
Once TADS 3 has become more established, it might be more meaningful
to regard it as separate from TADS 2 (if it is not already) in this
discussion. Perhaps Inform, TADS 2 and TADS 3 will become "the big
three" (if three turns out not to be a completely aribitrary number
in this connection)!
-- Eric
David Whyld
In total there have been 61 games written for Adrift this year. This
includes mini-comp entries and (unfortunately) games that are so
bug-ridden it's probably not even fair to call them games. But even
taking out the mini games and bug-ridden messes, there are still far
more games written for Adrift than any other system. In fact, it's
probably true to say that more games are written for Adrift than all
the other systems put together.
Zach Flynn
someway to find this out other than going through everygame and finding
out when it was released.
Gene Wirchenko
>"Bruce Humphrey" <bruc...@teleline.es> wrote in message
>news:ea4b7e97.0408...@posting.google.com...
>> As fodder for thought, I'll mention that from the number of adventures
>> released in 2004 in the IF Archive (popularity), the Big Three would
>> be Inform, Tads and Adrift.
>With my Tongue wedged firmly in my cheek I would suggest that if
>we use the number of adventures released, BASIC would have to be
>in there somewhere as they were coming out at a rate of 1 a day a
>short while ago.
Are you claiming that my Anti-Panks Flame Cannon is responsible
for Adrift making it to first place? <EG>
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
David Whyld
"Eric Eve" <eric...@NOSPAMhmc.ox.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:cgcjnr$b1d$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
>
>
> Just as a matter of interest, what period are you counting over? I'm
> sure there must be many more than 22 Inform adventures in the
> IF-Archive!
>
2004 is the period he's counting. I think he says later on in his post.
Of course, the IFArchive isn't an accurate count of how many games have been
written with a particular system, just a count of how many have actually
been *uploaded* to the Archive. The majority of Adrift games released this
year haven't been uploaded for one reason or another.
Jason
"Zach Flynn" <mog_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5iqWc.14309$nk.13644@okepread05...
> Where did you find a list of all game released for 2004? Is there
> someway to find this out other than going through everygame and finding
> out when it was released.
>
You can go to Baf's and look under Other Indices (or just go to
http://wurb.com/if/year/2004), but I'm not sure how long it takes for a game
to get up there.
Daniel Barkalow
Most of the games released in 2004 aren't yet available. That's likely to
skew any statistics, because a larger portion of games which would not be
suitable for the IFComp are released at other times, so those 8 months
undercount systems used more in comp-style games.
On the other hand, it does seem like Adrift has been bigger for a while
than Hugo, and Inform and TADS are much bigger than either. But I don't
recall hearing anything about "the Big Three" for a few years aside from
doubts that Hugo is one of them and that Adrift isn't.
-Iabervon
*This .sig unintentionally changed*
Bruce Humphrey
> > Looking at the IF Archive, I found:
> >
> > Inform is clearly in the lead in production, with 22 adventures.
> It is
> > a classic language and one which most IFfers know. Surely that
> helps.
>
> Just as a matter of interest, what period are you counting over? I'm
> sure there must be many more than 22 Inform adventures in the
> IF-Archive!
>
Ups... I mention it only at the end of the post... I'm only counting
2004, and I'm only using the IF Archive.
> Again, what are you counting here? That the IF-Archive contains only
> a small number of TADS 3 games is hardly surprising given that TADS
> 3 is still in beta (and only acquired beta status a couple of months
> ago). And where does TADS 2 come into your reckoning? If you'll
> pardon the pun, I'm just a tad puzzled by your statistics!
I count all tads games on the IF Archive... The tads subdirectory, so
that should be mainly Tads 2. I'm counting tads 2 and 3 together (I
think) 9 this year so far. I'm sure most TADS games are awaiting for
the IF Comp.
>
> Once TADS 3 has become more established, it might be more meaningful
> to regard it as separate from TADS 2 (if it is not already) in this
> discussion. Perhaps Inform, TADS 2 and TADS 3 will become "the big
> three" (if three turns out not to be a completely aribitrary number
> in this connection)!
I agree... once Tads 3 is established maybe they should be counted
differently, or once again, maybe no, maybe together. We'll see...
But, at the moment there is only the Big Two, in my opinion.
I have to say that I do have used GACS, AGT in the long past, have
tried to do something with Adrift, Quest and Alan, and of programming
IF languages (ok, Alan should be probably here too) I did use Hugo,
Inform, Tads 2 and Tads 3. Of all of them Tads 3 is the most
impressive. But, if I was going to do anything on an IF programming
language (maybe it is me being a programmer, but for IF I prefer not
to use a programming language at the moment, so that would be Adrift
or Quest, and at the moment, Adrift), I would probably use Inform as
that's the one I know. But, It would be difficult to decide between
Inform and TADS 3, of course.
As for ADRIFT, I only counted the releases on the IF Archive, and that
is 23. Same as inform (practically).
Best wishes, Bruce
Eric Eve
> Ups... I mention it only at the end of the post... I'm only
counting
> 2004, and I'm only using the IF Archive.
Yes - as I realized less than a minute after sending my last post!
> > Again, what are you counting here? That the IF-Archive contains
only
> > a small number of TADS 3 games is hardly surprising given that
TADS
> > 3 is still in beta (and only acquired beta status a couple of
months
> > ago). And where does TADS 2 come into your reckoning? If you'll
> > pardon the pun, I'm just a tad puzzled by your statistics!
>
> I count all tads games on the IF Archive... The tads subdirectory,
so
> that should be mainly Tads 2. I'm counting tads 2 and 3 together
(I
> think) 9 this year so far.
Right. Since you wrote "TADS (3) is the hot topic now on the group.
It seems as if it should
be the tool of choice, powerful, sleek, but it only has 9 games so
far" I thought perhaps you were giving a count of TADS 3 games.
> I'm sure most TADS games are awaiting for the IF Comp.
Probably; I know of at least one TADS 3 game that is!
-- Eric
ems...@mindspring.com
> Hugo has only 1. A system that only produces 1 game shouldn't be in
> the Big league, sorry, no matter how good it is. 1 game in 8 months
> seems a sign of a dying system.
I think there are a couple of issues here, even leaving aside points
like "Hugo has been ported to a very large number of platforms", "Hugo
is free", and "Hugo has a parser rather than pattern-matching".
Anyway, addressing the question of game numbers alone: One issue is
that authors sometimes choose Hugo over other major IF languages
because of its multimedia abilities. Several of the Hugo games that
have been released recently-ish (Fallacy of Dawn and Necrotic Drift
come to mind) or that are slated to appear in the near future (Future
Boy [http://www.generalcoffee.com/futureboy/]) have required far more
effort than the average IF game: producing music, sound effects, and
visuals significantly adds to the time cost of creating a new work.
On the other hand, the results are sizable games, polished and
professional enough to attract a lot of attention, and even have some
extra appeal outside the pure-text community. This helps to establish
Hugo as an important system. The absolute number of games is less
important to community perception, I think, than the quality and
visibility of the ones that have been released.
Second, Hugo coding issues are quite often addressed not on
rec.arts.int-fiction but over at the joltcountry.com forum -- much as
ADRIFT coding is usually discussed over on the ADRIFT forum. This may
give a false impression of how much is going on with Hugo these days.
And finally, because this *is* largely a matter of community
perception, there's not someone with the authority to change the
situation, other than maybe in the sense of moving where ADRIFT gets
mentioned in the raif faq. Otherwise, there is no official status for
languages, just a vague reputation that comes from community
discussion, and some individuals who disagree with that reputation
(sometimes strongly).
Michael
> Anyway, addressing the question of game numbers alone: One issue is
> that authors sometimes choose Hugo over other major IF languages
> because of its multimedia abilities. Several of the Hugo games that
> have been released recently-ish (Fallacy of Dawn and Necrotic Drift
> come to mind) or that are slated to appear in the near future (Future
> Boy [http://www.generalcoffee.com/futureboy/]) have required far more
> effort than the average IF game: producing music, sound effects, and
> visuals significantly adds to the time cost of creating a new work.
> On the other hand, the results are sizable games, polished and
> professional enough to attract a lot of attention, and even have some
> extra appeal outside the pure-text community.
Yes, but as an IF authoring system, it should be regarded on the same
level(s) as pure text systems. Sure, people who use Hugo to make
multimedia games will take long to produce said games, but what about
all the other types of IF it *could* be producing? There are none of any
significance, because it isn't popular in that regard. It simply doesn't
compare to TADS or Inform.
Even in the multimedia regard it doesn't hold up. There's been exactly
one author who has produced exactly two games of note with Hugo. Glulx
has at least that track record with multimedia games.
> This helps to establish
> Hugo as an important system. The absolute number of games is less
> important to community perception, I think, than the quality and
> visibility of the ones that have been released.
>
Meaning the two aforementioned games.
The number of games produced with a given system is, I think, important,
especially if one considers how many different authors have used said
system. Don't future authors want to know which authoring system is
popular, so that they can follow the wisdom of previous authors in their
choices? Hypothetically speaking, who knows why Robb chose Hugo to
produce his games with? It could be because he has a dearly beloved
cousin named Hugo. He's a good writer and he happened to choose Hugo to
write his games with, but is that a good reason to list it as one of the
"big" authoring systems?
Yes, Hugo is a multi-platform system, but it just isn't being used by
that many authors (at least on r.*.i-f) at all. The "big three" really
should be the "big two."
Michael
ems...@mindspring.com
> ems...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > Anyway, addressing the question of game numbers alone: One issue is
> > that authors sometimes choose Hugo over other major IF languages
> > because of its multimedia abilities.
> Yes, but as an IF authoring system, it should be regarded on the same
> level(s) as pure text systems. Sure, people who use Hugo to make
> multimedia games will take long to produce said games, but what about
> all the other types of IF it *could* be producing? There are none of any
> significance, because it isn't popular in that regard. It simply doesn't
> compare to TADS or Inform.
I'm not sure I made my line of thought here as clear as it could have
been:
People have demonstrated that Hugo is capable of producing games
similar in quality to TADS and Inform games, in respect of
portability, world modeling, and parsing. If it's used by fewer
authors, this is probably because it is comparatively new, and because
people have tended to stick with the languages they already know, or
for which there is already a large base of support. (This is a
self-perpetuating thing.) One thing that does inspire people to make
a switch is the graphics and multimedia support for Hugo, so it may be
unsurprising that there are fairly few products generated by these
converts.
> Even in the multimedia regard it doesn't hold up. There's been exactly
> one author who has produced exactly two games of note with Hugo. Glulx
> has at least that track record with multimedia games.
"Guilty Bastards" is also a game of note; "Crimson Spring" perhaps
somewhat less dramatically so, but still worth regarding; there may be
one or two more I'm forgetting. Considering the overall production
rate of heavily-illustrated multimedia IF with soundtrack, four or
five games on the archive is a pretty sizable percentage -- though
naturally the sample size is too tiny for useful statistics.
As far as capability is concerned, I suspect that in some respects
that support *is* better than the support for the same things provided
by Glulx.
> The number of games produced with a given system is, I think, important,
> especially if one considers how many different authors have used said
> system. Don't future authors want to know which authoring system is
> popular, so that they can follow the wisdom of previous authors in their
> choices?
Well, see, that doesn't seem inherently useful if the previous
authors' choice was also simply to go with what's already popular. I
haven't heard many people say "I chose Inform over Hugo because Hugo
can't do <whatever>."
> Hypothetically speaking, who knows why Robb chose Hugo to
> produce his games with? It could be because he has a dearly beloved
> cousin named Hugo. He's a good writer and he happened to choose Hugo to
> write his games with, but is that a good reason to list it as one of the
> "big" authoring systems?
It does at least prove to my satisfaction that Hugo has an acceptable
range of abilities for this kind of thing.
> Yes, Hugo is a multi-platform system, but it just isn't being used by
> that many authors (at least on r.*.i-f) at all. The "big three" really
> should be the "big two."
I don't think anyone would deny that the output of Hugo games is
lower; it's just that some people don't consider that the primary
issue.
Anyway, arguing this makes it sound like I care a lot more than I do.
I consider Hugo, TADS, and Inform the major IF languages because of
their demonstrated capability to produce IF meeting the requirements
-- portability, strong parsing, world model quality -- that I care
about most. If you want to define "major" differently, of course
you'll get a different subset. If you define purely on quantity of
individual games produced, then ADRIFT is the major IF language right
now, with Inform and TADS 2 as second and third. If "major" depends
on sophistication of world modeling, T3 wins. And if you want to
define "major" as depending on the average quality of the released
games, then I betcha Hugo beats 'em all.
Adam Thornton
Michael <bilgepu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>There's been exactly
>one author who has produced exactly two games of note with Hugo.
"A Crimson Spring" cries!
Adam
Adam Thornton
>one author who has produced exactly two games of note with Hugo.
"Guilty Bastards" cries!
Adam
Fortytwo
> What factors influence people's decision to try out a new system and
> change to it (I mean, people who are already pretty comfortable with
> another system)? There's obviously a considerable investment in time
> and effort in mastering any IF system, so it's quite understandable
> that once people have done so, they'd rather continue to work with
> it than switch to something new, particularly if it works well
> enough for them. My guess is that people who particularly enjoy the
> programming aspect of composing IF might be more attracted to trying
> out a different system than people who primarily enjoy the writing
> aspect, but I could be wrong.
When I started programming IF I spent a month working with Inform, but
then learned about TADS. At first I was uncertain about whether I should
choose the accepted language or if I should try and figure out if TADS3
(even in beta form) was preferable for me.
Perhaps it's different for others, but I spent years programming in C++
and then switched to Java because the language moves a lot of work off
of the programmer.
In my own mind, I see Inform as like C++ and TADS3 as like Java. Inform
and C++ currently have a larger community, but Java and TADS3 are easier
to learn and have a lot more facilities built in so that programmers
don't have to reinvent the wheel for nearly as many things. C++ (like
Inform) has many many libraries out there, but Java (like TADS3) has
huge amounts of standardized libraries that are distributed with the
language.
BTW, I'm not intending this message as some sort of evangelistic attempt
to push either language. My point is that I chose to make TADS3 my IF
language because I like the uniformity of the language and all the cool
facilities built into TADS3.
Other people may well decide that they prefer Inform because they prefer
to stick with the larger community. Certainly, if you have been using
Inform for years and already have made many libraries part of your own
standardized system, then the benefit of switching to TADS3 would not be
nearly as great as a newcomer who has no knowledge of either language.
It really comes down to the personality of each programmer. Read about
each language and then choose the one that you intuitively feel works
best with your own personality.
Timofei Shatrov
tried to confuse everyone with this message:
Would Stiffy Makane cry if SMTUC was written in Hugo?
--
|a\o/r|,-------------.,---------- Timofei Shatrov aka Grue ------------.
| m"a ||FC AMKAR PERM|| mail: grue at mail.ru http://grue3.tripod.com |
| k || PWNZ J00 || KoL:Grue3 NationStates:Holypunkeye |
`-----'`-------------'`-------------------------------------------[4*72]
David Whyld
>
> People have demonstrated that Hugo is capable of producing games
> similar in quality to TADS and Inform games, in respect of
> portability, world modeling, and parsing. If it's used by fewer
> authors, this is probably because it is comparatively new
>
By "comparatively new" what kind of timescale are we talking? I played
Guilty Bastards when I first got onto the internet over 3 years ago so
the system has been out for at least that long. 3 years doesn't seem
like a short amount of time.
>
> if you want to
> define "major" as depending on the average quality of the released
> games, then I betcha Hugo beats 'em all.
>
Taking that to an extreme, if there was only one game ever written
with Hugo and that game was brilliant, it would be a fair assumption
to say that *every* game written with Hugo was brilliant. Likewise, if
only one game had been written and it was dire, it would also be true
to say that every Hugo game was dire.
Maybe Hugo produces some high quality games but the same could be said
of every major authoring system out there. I can only think of one
major system that has never produced a game of note (Quest); all the
others have produced games of very high quality and all of them have
produced them far more quickly than Hugo.
Of course, part of my feeling this way probably stems from the fact
that I don't consider Hugo's multimedia capabilities to be anything
special. I don't like sounds in games (I always play with the volume
turned off) and if you have to have graphics in games, I prefer them
to be actual drawings - as you used to get in the 80's text adventures
I grew up playing - as opposed to the images you tend to find in Hugo
games.
Michael
Sorry man, I really meant no offense, and this goes to all the other
Hugo authors out there other than Robb. You've all written more games
than I have, and alot of them are respectable, I'm sure. I took a
quick glance through Baf's at the Hugo games, and Robb's games were
the only one's that registered for some reason, that's all. Mea Culpa!
Michael
Ross Presser
> Taking that to an extreme, if there was only one game ever written
> with Hugo and that game was brilliant, it would be a fair assumption
> to say that *every* game written with Hugo was brilliant. Likewise, if
> only one game had been written and it was dire, it would also be true
> to say that every Hugo game was dire.
More than a fair assumption -- it would be literally true. Furthermore, it
is undeniably true that every game written with RAIF-POOL is both brilliant
AND dire, as well as stupid, self-cleaning, pentasyllabic, polyunsaturated
and every other adjective in the dictionary.
Michael
> > ems...@mindspring.com wrote:
> > The number of games produced with a given system is, I think, important,
> > especially if one considers how many different authors have used said
> > system. Don't future authors want to know which authoring system is
> > popular, so that they can follow the wisdom of previous authors in their
> > choices?
>
> Well, see, that doesn't seem inherently useful if the previous
> authors' choice was also simply to go with what's already popular. I
> haven't heard many people say "I chose Inform over Hugo because Hugo
> can't do <whatever>."
>
I *would* be interested in some reviews of Hugo as an IF authoring system...
Michael
Eric Eve
news:a69830de.0408...@posting.google.com...
> Michael <bilgepu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<uFuWc.221628$fv.1...@fe2.columbus.rr.com>...
> > ems...@mindspring.com wrote:
> >
> One thing that does inspire people to make
> a switch is the graphics and multimedia support for Hugo, so it
may be
> unsurprising that there are fairly few products generated by these
> converts.
> As far as capability is concerned, I suspect that in some respects
> that support *is* better than the support for the same things
provided
> by Glulx.
Just as a matter of interest, since I know next to nothing about
Hugo, how does the graphics and multimedia support of Hugo compare
with that of HTML-TADS?
> Anyway, arguing this makes it sound like I care a lot more than I
do.
> I consider Hugo, TADS, and Inform the major IF languages because
of
> their demonstrated capability to produce IF meeting the
requirements
> -- portability, strong parsing, world model quality -- that I care
> about most. If you want to define "major" differently, of course
> you'll get a different subset. If you define purely on quantity
of
> individual games produced, then ADRIFT is the major IF language
right
> now, with Inform and TADS 2 as second and third. If "major"
depends
> on sophistication of world modeling, T3 wins.
Quite so.
> And if you want to
> define "major" as depending on the average quality of the released
> games, then I betcha Hugo beats 'em all.
Possibly, although as David Whyld points out, that may not be
statistically all that meaningful.
Nonetheless, I agree with your main point: the most useful
definition of 'major' is the first one you give, since in practice
the questions people actually need to ask in this regard are either
(a) I'm starting out as an IF author, which system (or systems)
should I learn? or (b) I've been working with X for quite a while,
is it worth my switching to or at least taking a close look at Y or
Z? The answer to such questions will depend in some measure on
personal taste and what exactly the enquirer is hoping to achieve
but also in large measure to the qualities you suggest.
-- Eric
Adam Thornton
Dunno. I went with Glulx Inform because I already knew Inform. I don't
know what facilities Hugo has for doing the sort of frame-by-frame
animation that I did in SMTUC, but with that possible exception, I'm
pretty sure--based on Necrotic Drift and Fallacy of Dawn--that Hugo
would have worked just as well.
But, yeah, I'm part of the inertia problem with Hugo: I learned Inform
first, and I had an adaptable codebase from which to start.
Adam
Robb Sherwin
> Hypothetically speaking, who knows why Robb chose Hugo to
> produce his games with?
Back in 2000 the only way to get a game going with a display sort of
like 'The Pawn,' alongside ample source and an example game was with
Hugo. The other IF languages have taken off in terms of their
multimedia capabilities since then, but Hugo was the most mature back
when I started. Since then I've had no reason to switch, as Hugo has
managed to handle all the situations I've thrown at it, allowed me to
configure the screen exactly as I've wanted it and just generally
evolved nicely over the years. (I also run a PC with BeOS on it, and
having the work I do be instantly "ported" to Be is a big plus for me,
personally.)
> The number of games produced with a given system is, I think, important,
> especially if one considers how many different authors have used said
> system. Don't future authors want to know which authoring system is
> popular, so that they can follow the wisdom of previous authors in their
> choices?
I do agree with you, however with Hugo the creator of the language has
been available (at least in my case) to answer any and all questions
I've had with his language very quickly in the five years I've been
using it. I don't think I've ever had a question go unanswered for
more than a day or two, which is why I secretly believe that there are
several Kent Tessmans, each with the technical expertise to handle
questions that shake the core of his development system. When picking
a new non-IF language to handle something, say, at work, I am
definitely with you in so much as knowing that there is a big
community to help smooth out whatever learning curve I'll have. But
that's mostly because I don't expect any sort of immediate access to
the person who laid everything down, which you get with Hugo.
ems...@mindspring.com
> On 24 Aug 2004 00:42:17 -0700, David Whyld wrote:
[I wrote: that the overall quality of Hugo games is above average.]
Yes, quite. I meant that line as a reflection on the fact that you
could dig up some definition of 'major language' to select for just
about any subset of languages you wanted.
Still, I think the Hugo stats do at least tentatively suggest
something interesting. Inform and TADS (and, as far as I can tell,
ADRIFT) attract a lot of newbie authors, some of whom crank out and
release unpolished experiments because they're inexperienced or
because they're taking the whole thing less seriously. Which is fine,
but the result is a large pool of not-so-good games in those
languages. Hugo seems not to attract those sorts of authors nearly as
much -- even many of the relatively trivial Hugo games I see on the
archive, like Gilles Duschesne's Captain Speedo series, tend to be the
product of more than the usual care. And Hugo does have a small,
dedicated core of experienced authors, some of whom have used other IF
languages before and/or are professional programmers. I see a couple
of possibilities to explain this:
1: Hugo is a great language, but very much harder to learn than the
others. This may be true with respect to ADRIFT, but I have no reason
to think that Inform or TADS is vastly more accessible, except by
virtue of being supported by a larger community.
2: Hugo does not attract new authors so much because of its relatively
low profile, but nonetheless has some qualities that do attract and
retain experienced authors, even those who know perfectly well what
advantages might be found in another system.
Neither of these says anything detrimental about the system as a
system, only about the social circumstances in which it appears, and
these issues might in fact be resolved if more new authors did take it
up.
It seems to me that if on the other hand the problem were a widespread
newbie interest being thwarted by some innate defect in Hugo, what
we'd see is a fair number of poor-ish Hugo games, maybe a handful of
decent ones written despite the difficulty, and some of the best Hugo
authors leaving to learn Inform or TADS as their ambitions exceeded
the abilities of their chosen language.
But you're right that the sample size is very small. I just think
that "There aren't many games in this language THEREFORE IT MUST HAVE
SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT" (which seems implicit in some of this thread
and which I have heard suggested explicitly elsewhere) is not a valid
line of argument -- unless you can support the premise that authors
will automatically distribute themselves equally among all available
non-lame systems. Or unless you define "something wrong" as a lack of
existing games, in which case, well, duh.
I further think there's no point arguing over the composition of the
entity called "the big three" unless you define what you mean by that
first. It's popular in some venues to have long animated arguments
about which of a set of things is best, often without defining
terminology or addressing each other's points at all, but I find that
r*if generally rises above the average discourse level of, say, US
politics.
Bruce Humphrey
> I see a couple
> of possibilities to explain this:
>
> 1: Hugo is a great language, but very much harder to learn than the
> others. This may be true with respect to ADRIFT, but I have no reason
> to think that Inform or TADS is vastly more accessible, except by
> virtue of being supported by a larger community.
>
> 2: Hugo does not attract new authors so much because of its relatively
> low profile, but nonetheless has some qualities that do attract and
> retain experienced authors, even those who know perfectly well what
> advantages might be found in another system.
>
Well, I don't think it can be 1, because as I would say that Hugo's
language, IMHO as a programmer, is easier than Inform and TADS to learn.
So probably the main reason is then low profile... and that same low
profile affects the people who think about learning a new language,
as they can't find so many sourcecodes for their 'learning'.
Best wishes, Bruce
Richard Bos
> ems...@mindspring.com (ems...@mindspring.com) wrote in message news:
>
> > 1: Hugo is a great language, but very much harder to learn than the
> > others. This may be true with respect to ADRIFT, but I have no reason
> > to think that Inform or TADS is vastly more accessible, except by
> > virtue of being supported by a larger community.
> >
> > 2: Hugo does not attract new authors so much because of its relatively
> > low profile, but nonetheless has some qualities that do attract and
> > retain experienced authors, even those who know perfectly well what
> > advantages might be found in another system.
>
> Well, I don't think it can be 1, because as I would say that Hugo's
> language, IMHO as a programmer, is easier than Inform and TADS to learn.
Ah, but does Hugo have such an outstanding manual as Inform's DM4? I
suppose that must be a definite assistance to beginning programmers.
After all, not all IF authors are programmers to begin with.
Richard
Ben Heaton
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Ross Presser wrote:
>
> More than a fair assumption -- it would be literally true. Furthermore, it
> is undeniably true that every game written with RAIF-POOL is both brilliant
> AND dire, as well as stupid, self-cleaning, pentasyllabic, polyunsaturated
> and every other adjective in the dictionary.
>
Except possibly adjectives like "existent" - though I know philosophy
majors who can spend hours arguing with each other about this.
-Ben Heaton
Ross Presser
Well, from my limited math background, to say "Every member of set X has
property Y" is trivially true when X has no members, regardless of property
Y. So even saying "Every game written with RAIF-POOL exists" is true --
there are no members of the set of games written with RAIF-POOL that you
can point at and say "this game does not exist", because ther are no
members you can point to at all.